


Save the Unicorn

by AraSigyrn



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Kris Allen (Musician)
Genre: Community: kradambigbang, Crack, M/M, unicorn-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 55,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam always wanted to be a rockstar. Being the poster-child for unicorn conservation, the top trending scandal on Twitter and a wanted federal fugitive? That wasn't ever meant to be part of of the plan but when Adam finds a baby unicorn hiding behind a dumpster one night, his life is never ever the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Incredible thanks to my betas, deannawol and Tacitus for their support, advice and corrections. Seriously, thank you guys for keeping me (somewhat) sane.
> 
> Thank you to birddi for the stunning art and music and the kind words.
> 
> Thanks to everyone on the f-list for support and encouragement and wellundefined catching my Hiberno-English slips. ♥  
> 

  


"unicorn, (uoo-nee-corn): **noun**  
1\. Common name for _ceroequus nobilis_ , also known as the greater common unicorn."

Adam finds out about unicorns the same way he finds out about elephants and rhinoceroses; from picture books and the television. They're a whole module in history class and English and Spanish classes have poems about unicorns. Adam is five when his mom reads him a children's version Shakespeare's "Tale of Lancelot & the Unicorn" as the first bedtime story that Adam really remembers and he talks his mom into making him tinfoil amour for Halloween so he can go trick-or-treating as Lancelot with a plush unicorn that belongs to one of his mom's cousins.

He's in the eighth grade by the time they cover real unicorns in the biology section of science class. It's probably the most interesting part of the whole course because Mister Trevors is a original hippy, complete with long slightly-greasy gray hair in a ponytail and organic cotton-canvas pants. He wears a tarnished golden peace sign and every time there's a field trip, he shows up in painfully bright tie-dyed t-shirts.

Mister Trevors believes in saving the whales and the orangutans and the pandas and the planet in general. His lessons are more like sermons on how humans are a horrible blight on the majesty of the natural world.

"Take the dodo," he says, waving his hands while Adam doodles in the margins of his book and thinks about Micheal David, the guy he sits beside in Spanish class. Micheal is a really cool guy and Adam gets all dorky and stupid when he smiles and it's cripplingly embarrassing but he thinks maybe Micheal likes hanging out with him. "A robust, charming bird, destroyed! Erased entirely from the ecosystem!"

It's kind of repetitive and he gives the same speech about the dangers of extinction every time they cover any of the interesting animals and Mr Trevors goes into crazy levels of details to show how every species is important to the ecosystem. Adam doesn't mean to blow the whole thing off but well, he's thirteen years old and it's two o'clock on Friday afternoon.

Unicorns turn out to be Mister Trevors' pet project. He really pulls out all the stops; there are like maps with population graphs and time-lines and a slide-show. Adam feels a little bad for him because he has actual slides and the slide machine is old and too hot.

"Unicorn extinction is a leading cause in global warming," Mister Trevors tells them and Adam will remember how hot it was, with the windows closed and the blinds down and just Mister Trevors nasal breathing and droning voice. "It's consistent across the world; history shows that a drop in the unicorn population means famine, disease and death. Arabian historians talk about the desertification of Egypt after the Romans captured the local blessings of unicorns to bring them back to Italy."

Nancy, who sits two seats down from Adam, puts up her hand and Mister Trevor sighs. "Yes, Nancy?"

"Wouldn't that make Italy like, super-fertile?"

"That was what Augustus is supposed to have hoped for, yes," Mister Trevor says. "In fact, there's research to suggest that unicorns are linked somehow to their local habitat which means you can't just transplant them to another country."

"What happened to the unicorns?" Randy from two rows down asks. "Did they just emigrate back home?"

"Migrate, people emigrate when they leave a country but animals migrate," Mister Trevors corrects. "And no, I'm afraid they didn't. The ships that were transporting them sank and the unicorns were killed. It's supposedly where the legend of wave crests being the manes of horses comes from."

Adam writes that down and stops really paying attention after that. He's thinking about the latest season of Power Rangers and how Neil lost his Nintendo controller yesterday. Unicorns just aren't that interesting, comparatively speaking. Adam gets a 'B+' on the inevitable exam and gets on with his life. He's nearly finished middle school which means everyone's talking about high school and his mom keeps talking about how he's all grown up.

High school completely fails to live up the hype. It's full of teenagers who are all condescending or outright sadistic. The teachers are like monsters out of a Jim Henson movie, all gleefully assigning extra homework and more reading like they want Adam to never ever have a social life. Neil gets in a fight in middle school that gets him suspended and their parents are arguing all the time.

Adam's got his own problems, not that anyone cares. Puberty hits him hard and he gets tall and fat at the same time which should be against the law or something and the jerks in school start picking on him. He's not really bullied, the jocks don't hassle him too much because he's too big and too prone to occasionally blowing his top and getting in fights but he stops having friends to hang out with. He gets a reputation as 'that weird Lambert kid' and spends most of his free time with the disc-man his dad bought him for his thirteenth birthday.

He's really bad at math, like 'going to be held back a year' bad and his teachers tell his mom that he needs to be tutored. Adam's mom comes back from that meeting and tells Adam that she'll do her best but if he flunks any other subject, the school will have to hold him back and Adam has to take biology as his elective science because it's the least-math-heavy science.

Biology is seriously gross and involves far too much dissection and group projects for Adam's taste. He manages a 'B'-average which isn't good enough for his mom but keeps him from failing the year. Adam resents the hell out of biology for most of his high school academic career but it does have some good points.

In eleventh grade, Adam gets to go on a field trip with the rest of his class. There's a new exhibit "Iconic & Extinct?" which is all about the really famous endangered species. It's being done in partnership with San Diego Zoo, so the emphasis is on the animals that the zoo has as well. They go on a safari trip where the guide points out the tigers and they get to take pictures with an old Polaroid camera and that's kinda cool.

The museum has rooms full of the exhibit and it's kinda awesome in this really horrible way to see things like the elephant foot waste-paper basket and little ivory figurines that people killed elephants to get. Nearly all the exhibits are like that and Adam has his project folder with pictures of like the mom tiger with her cubs on the opposite page to all his notes about British Game hunters.

The one exception is the unicorn exhibit which has a stuffed unicorn in a glass case that gives Adam the unsettling feeling that it's watching him and grainy archive footage of unicorns grazing with buffaloes and there are pictures everywhere of hunters with dead unicorns at their feet. There's no unicorns in the zoo and there's a whole table devoted to explaining that wild unicorns can't be kept in captivity. No-one actually seems to know why, according to the table but they disappear or die every time someone tries to put them in a zoo.

"Unicorns are a protected species world-wide," the narrator on the video says in this plastic cheerful voice. "Resolutions to preserve and protect these rare and beautiful creatures have been passed by the UN General Assembly. Repeated efforts to establish breeding pairs have been unsuccessful and there are campaigns world-wide by organizations such as Greenpeace to try and protect their habitat."

There are wall-hangings with old documents blown up to huge size that tell the story of early American governments who declared unicorns to be 'un-American' because they couldn't be tamed and tended to hang out with slaves and Native Americans. There are posters and old newspapers about unicorns carrying slaves to freedom and being shot down by cruel plantation owners.

There's another video about the Cull and Adam watches it in this crowded little side room, sitting on a beanbag.

"The Cull was a government endorsed sanction taken against the Native American tribes that refused to make way for the influx of new settlers from Europe. A bounty of five dollars was paid on every unicorn horn with bonuses for hunters that brought back more than ten horns from a trip. This bounty was only offered for five years on two separate occasions and cost the government an estimated seventy five thousand dollars over all. The native herds – or rather 'blessings' - were all but exterminated and Native American wise woman O-cha of the Mojave tribe called it 'an act of unimaginable evil, to kill the Earth's children so cheaply’ and added ‘you have done a wrong that our children and our children’s children will be paying the price of for generations to come.’”

There's a lot of pictures and some grade-school kids who are there with their moms start to cry. Adam doesn't blame them. There are pictures of unicorns hanging beside big stout men with handlebar mustaches and proud smiles. More photos - this time of hunting knives with unicorn-bone handles and unicorn skin mats - and Adam's stomach twists.

"Benjamin Lily, known as Ol'Lily to his peers, holds the record for the largest game-bag of unicorns with two thousand, four hundred unicorns to his name. He was famous as the Unicorn hunter and believed to be the biggest single cause of the extinction of the Mojave-region blessing. Mr Lily was repeatedly taken to task by Native American lobbies and members of the Presbyterian Church for his habit of shooting unicorn demoiselles with nursing young and shooting joys or immature unicorns." The film cuts from a picture of Benjamin Lily in his caveman hunting furs to pictures of baby unicorns like tiny rag dolls scattered among the blessings of dead and Adam has to bolt for the bathroom.

He spends a few minutes retching miserably over the bowl of toilet. His mouth tastes of bile when he finally feels able to face the museum and his classmates again. Adam avoids the hell out of the unicorn exhibit. His paper, when he finally writes it, would have made Mr Trevors proud. He calls it 'Why humans are scum' and it only gets an 'A-'. His mom is disappointed but Adam couldn't care less. He drops biology that year and focuses on music.

Adam gets out of high school more or less intact. He stops growing eventually and his voice settles into a pleasant tenor. He still gets picked on for being the fat ginger-headed faggot until one day when Derek Antwerp calls him a 'Jew-fag cocksucker' and Adam's suddenly so fucking sick of him. Years of being jostled in the hallway, getting his books knocked out of his hands and spitballs on his clothes comes boiling up and just like that, Adam's not scared any more. He's _pissed_.

"Fuck you!" It's a toss up, Adam thinks, which of them is more astonished. Derek's thick brows are knitted down and his mouth is hanging open. Adam can see his tonsils quivering down in the pit of his throat. There's a still second when it feels like the whole world has frozen in place.

"What did you say?" Derek sputters and Adam can feel the moment slipping through his fingers. Any second now and Derek's going to start throwing punches. Adam plants both hands on his hips, pulls himself up to his full height and wow, has Derek always been smaller than him?

"Fuck you," Adam enunciates clearly. "Need me to spell it for you? Or find your study buddy to help you with the difficult letters?"

There's a snicker from the crowd around them and Derek goes blotchy red. "I'm going to fucking kill you, fag."

His hands come up, already curled into fists and Adam thinks _oh god, I'm going to_ die. His mouth opens without any prompting from his brain. "Need me to stand still for you? I've seen your throws on the field."

This time the 'oooh' comes from more than one person and even the other football players are smirking. Derek's a mean son of a bitch and tenacious as a pit bull but he can't throw for shit and everyone knows it. Derek is going purple now and Adam throws his hip to one side and gives Derek a contemptuous once over that would have done credit to Mae West.

"Look, I'm flattered and all, but honey, I'm just not into you," Adam says in his best queen bitch tone.

"What? What the fuck are you talking about?" Derek chokes and Adam rolls his eyes theatrically.

"Some people? Grow out of the whole pulling-pigtails kind of crushes in _grade school_ ," Adam blows on his nails. He hasn't painted them for days and they're chipped to hell. He's so going to have to fix that. "Call me when you wanna grow the fuck up."

He turns on his heel and sashays down the hall, leaving Derek purple-faced and cursing in his wake. Adam feels like he's breathing champagne, bubbly and light enough to just float away. He spends the rest of the day waiting for Derek or his jerk friends to jump him but when he gets into his car at the end of the day, he hasn't seen hide or hair of them.

That night, singing along to Madonna, Adam promises himself that he's done being ashamed of himself.

When he gets handed his diploma at graduation, Adam's already paid the deposit and first month's rent on an apartment in LA. His music teacher knows some people in the music industry and he's got a few auditions lined up. He smiles at the principal and poses for the photos with his mom and dad and his brother. Neil pulls faces in every photo because he's a jerk like that.

Adam doesn't care. His mind is already on the road to LA and his future. He packs up the day after graduation and leaves that weekend with his car full of boxes. He doesn't get to his apartment until late but the city is lit up like a holiday parade.

Los Angeles is awesome and Adam takes to the music scene like a fabulous swan to water. Everyone is brilliant and there are people who know music and love music like it's a religion. Adam's not that devoted but just being part of that group is intoxicating. He loses weight, partly from a diet but mostly because he's in rehearsals all morning and most of the afternoon, performing throughout the evening and going out clubbing afterwards, usually until two or three in the morning.

Adam meets Brad at a club called Dixie with scantily clad, ripped Elvis impersonators that swish and saunter through the tables with trays of neon—colored drinks. Brad is wearing transparent pants and a silver G-string and he drops into Adam's lap. Literally, he spins off the dance-floor - Adam might have been watching him a little - and drops straight into Adam's lap.

"You don't mind, do you?" Brad says breezily, looping an arm around his neck and batting his eyes.

"Mind?"

"They're going to start the strip show and you have the best...lines," Brad purrs, shimmying a little in a way that makes all the blood in Adam's body go south.

"Lines?" Adam squeaks.

"Of sight?" Brad twists around in Adam's lap, wriggling and squirming a lot more than seems strictly necessary to turn two inches to his left so he can point to the stage. "There are some seriously hot boys and the good seats are all taken."

Adam laughs and Cassidy comes back with drinks. They start talking and Brad turns out to be into music, Texan and militantly out of the closet. They talk until the lights go down and Brad goes through the twisting around on Adam's lap routine again and sits back against Adam's chest.

Adam loops an arm around his waist and tries to keep talking to Cassidy but Brad keeps moving every time Adam stops paying attention to him. Cassidy gives up his side of the conversation five minutes in, saluting him with his cocktail and moving to rejoining the crowd on the dance floor. Brad keeps looking at the striptease and the admittedly pretty boys taking their disco flares off.

"See something you like?" Adam breathes in Brad's ear, leaning up a little and Brad shivers and Adam feels like he's James Bond, all dangerous and sexy.

"Mmm," Brad hums and Adam laughs, dark and powerful.

"Or maybe it's _feel_ something you like?" Adam asks, spreading his hand against Brad's bare stomach and Brad tips his head back with a groan.

Brad goes home with him that night and they date for six mind-blowing months. Adam lives those six months on a roller coaster - everything happens fast and hard and they swing from being gloriously happy and totally in love to screaming abuse and throwing dishes, sheets of music and bottles of vodka. They hurt each other towards the end and Adam thinks they're the last ones to know it's over.

Adam gets dragged out for cocktails every night for a month and he doesn't even look at another boy for six weeks after that. Adam gets over the sex eventually but he misses Brad, misses going to movies and squabbling over popcorn or cruising the shops with Brad's bitchy commentary. Adam cracks two months after they break up and calls Brad.

"Hi," he says and Brad's silent. "Look, I-this isn't a 'please take me back' call, all right? I'm not going to ask you to come back."

"So, you're calling because-?" Brad says after a long pause.

"I get that we don't work as boyfriends, all right? I get that but," Adam taps his fingers on the wall by the phone. "But I'd really like it if we could try again as friends. Just friends."

There's another long pause before Brad sighs gustily and Adam's stomach cramps and his shoulders hunch up.

"All right," Brad says eventually. "Okay. I can do friends."

The first few not-dates are awkward and Adam keeps tripping over his tongue and saying stupid things. It's worth it and by Adam's birthday, they're back to clubbing every night they can and hanging out together. Brad, underneath the bitchiness, is probably the best friend Adam's ever had. He gets Adam singing outside of the musicals, badgers him relentless until Adam records a demo and starts sending it around to music agents and producers.

Three days before Adam is offered his first contract, Drake knocks on his door at the unholy (to Adam) hour of eight am. He's slim, tanned and an absolute fanatic for unicorns. In fact the first thing he says to Adam is "If you saw a unicorn hit by a car, what would you do?"

"Call a vet?" Adam suggests, a little shell-shocked and hungover.

Drake beams at him and Adam winces a little. Drake's hot, sure but Adam's not nearly awake enough to deal with such relentless cheer.

"Why?" Adam asks as his brain starts to come slowly back to life. "Is there a unicorn in the road or something? Should I be calling this vet right now?"

"Unicorns don't come into urban areas," Drake says, rolling his eyes. "It was a hypothetical question!"

"Ah," Adam says. He rubs his eyes. "You know, even in LA, most conversations start with 'Hello'?"

"I'm not going to start a conversation with you until I know you're not the sort of monster who would let a unicorn die," Drake says and Adam has to concede the logic of that argument. "Also, if you were a monstrous waste of genetic material, you wouldn't be interested in having a conversation about SUN."

"What do unicorns have to do with the Sun?" Adam asks, trying desperately to remember if someone might have slipped him acid the night before.

"Save Unicorns Now, the largest unicorn conservation charity in the United States," Drake rattles off. He keeps talking for ten minutes while Adam tries very hard not to yawn in his face about American unicorns being a critical genetic crossroad and how the recent droughts in the Southwest are being caused by the unicorn population's dramatic decline.

Adam gives Drake a couple of crumpled twenties when he gets to the "your contribution could help solve this crisis, the worst in the history of the Earth" part of his speech and is rewarded with another brilliant smile and a card with a big cheesy cartoon sun on the front and Drake's number scrawled on the back.

Adam doesn't plan to get into a relationship but Drake is flexible, charming and laid-back. One thing leads to another and suddenly Drake has his number, a key to Adam's apartment and a list of everything Adam likes but forgets to pick up at the store.

He works as an interior decorator/designer (Adam's not sure which) to pay the bills but Drake's consuming passion is unicorns. He has hundreds of thousands of handy information sheets stacked in office and photographs of the different types of unicorn cover every inch of his apartment walls. Adam point-blank refuses sex in any room of Drake's while the lights are on.

It's actually fascinating; Adam hasn't paid attention to unicorns since that long ago biology class and he has a vague idea of unicorns as fluffy, docile creatures. Drake is horrified by Adam's ignorance and insists on Adam watching all eight DVDs in the 'Living Fable' series. Adam spends the night before on the couch for not knowing what 'Living Fable' was.

It turns out to be a David Attenborough nature documentary on unicorns, the most in-depth and scientifically accurate program ever made on unicorns. It's surprisingly enthralling and Adam is won over by the footage from the unicorn blessing in Yellowstone Park. The camera crew attracted the attention of a young colt with a copper-red coat and a gold-streaked mane. There are five hours of bonus footage with the crew feeding him popcorn and watching him bounce around like a fawn on spring-loaded hooves.

The colt - called Courage by the crew - only shows up for half of one of the episodes but it's an awesome sequence where the crew, looking for traces of the blessing, are surprised by a huge grizzly bear. Courage comes to their rescue and there's a surreal bit of footage that shows this bear, twelve feet tall if he's an inch, being chased away by this tiny willowy unicorn the size of a Shetland pony. Adam cheers Courage unabashedly and Drake rewards his increased interest in unicorns with blow-jobs.

Five days later, Adam is waiting for a call back from Simon Fuller, the agent who liked his demo-tape and checking his email for the hundredth time. He Googles 'Yellowstone Unicorns' and gets the Park Service page which links to an FAQ about Courage. The very first question is "Can I see Courage in Yellowstone Park?"

The answer below says simply "Unfortunately, Courage is no longer part of the resident unicorn blessing at Yellowstone. There are still estimated to be nearly a hundred unicorns in the Park although they are shy creatures and you might not see one during your visit."

Puzzled, Adam goes back to the FAQ and clicks the fifth question: "What happened to Courage?"

There's a 'Mature Content' warning banner and Adam has to scroll down to read the actual answer. "Courage was killed by illegal hunters who wanted his horn. Male unicorn horns have been used as cures for various diseases since the time of Ancient Greece and a young colt like Courage would yield nearly two ounces of powdered horn. It's very likely that Courage was deliberately targeted because unlike most wild unicorns, Courage wasn't afraid of humans."

There are pictures, mostly of the rock cairn where Courage was buried and links to other pages about unicorns. At the very bottom of the page, there's a looping animation of Courage leaping off a tree trunk, bouncing and happy.

Adam calls Drake the next morning and finds time somewhere in his crazy schedule to join SUN and get involved in the campaign to stop unicorn hunting. SUN is full of funny, quirky people which is awesome but means that they spend more time on office politics than actually saving unicorns. It's infuriating and Adam whines to Brad and his other friends for hours at a time.

His phone bill for that month comes to $300 and Brad demands he buy them all drinks to pay for the support and guidance they've been providing. He really should have expected what happened next when Brad asks about the next meeting of SUN after Adam spent two hours complaining about the latest disaster over funding. Instead Adam is as stupefied as Drake and the rest of SUN when Brad, looking fabulous in a rainbow T-shirt with a silver unicorn appliqué, saunters into the meeting with Cassidy who is hiding his smirk behind a Starbucks mocha and Alisan behind him.

"Oh my god, sweetheart," Brad says to Caroline who aspires to being a fashionista and who is de facto chairwoman because she's the only one who takes notes. "You are so not a summer. Someone has been _lying_ to you."

"And pink is so not your color," Alisan chimes in. "Not in lipstick or nail polish but some bronze would look awesome. I know a wonderful manicure place, I'll get you their card."

"So," Brad interrupts this Lifetime movie moment by clapping his hands. "Let's go save some unicorns!"

Adam worries a little about how Simon Fuller is going to react to the new and improved SUN and Adam's place in it but Lanie, his agent, waves off his concern. "Ecological causes are good. The unicorn thing is a _little_ cliche but it so totally works with the gay. You're doing beautifully, baby."

Drake doesn't agree; he doesn't like the new and improved SUN. Adam never really finds out why. Drake complains about everything and drags out every talk and vote to the point that Adam wants to wring his neck. Drake loathes Brad for reasons that boil down to them being polar opposite personalities. Brad hates him right back and on one memorable occasion, destroys a brand-new $80 manicure in a cat fight with Drake that gets the police called on them. It's an explosive mix and this time, Adam isn't surprised when Drake announces that they're breaking up.

Drake flounces off into the depths of LA's charitable scene with his unicorn pictures but he leaves his copy of 'Living Fable' in Adam's DVD player. Adam's life is so crazy busy that he only gets to spend one weekend drunk off his ass on expensive cocktails to mourn before he's sitting in meetings where glamorous young stick insects in business suits discuss his artistic 'vision' which should include lots of sex but without mentioning the gay.

"It's not selling my soul to the music industry that's the problem," Adam tells Brad as they watch Living Fable for the fortieth time while stuffing envelopes for SUN's latest mailing. Adam has to stuff mailers because he's nominally the head of SUN (if only because no-one else wanted it and Adam was the unlucky bastard who missed the crucial committee meeting). "It's the feeling that I seriously under-priced it."

"Diva," Brad sniffs, eyes on Courage's prancing.

"I'm not a diva," Adam objects. "There needs to be at least four hookers and an illicit substance in the room before I qualify as a diva."

Brad rolls his eyes and throws a fresh stack of envelopes at him.

Adam has been an official, contracted rockstar for five months and president of SUN for nearly a year when he finds the baby unicorn hiding behind the dumpster behind his apartment.

It - he, Adam thinks - is tiny, smaller than a Labrador and a soft rich gold color with a darker bronze mane and big brown eyes that melt Adam's heart right there in the grubby, stinking alley. His coat is soft and he snuffles at Adam's outstretched fingers with innocent curiosity. He butts his head against Adam's hand and chirps happily when Adam scruffs a hand through his mane, leaning into his fingers.

Adam is enchanted and spends the next ten or twenty minutes cooing over the tiny little unicorn. It's only when he hears one of his neighbors closing their window that Adam thinks to look around for more unicorns. The little guy can't be more than a foal, just barely old enough to wander from his mom and unicorn demoiselles are the most aggressively protective mothers in the natural world.

But there aren't any other unicorns, even when Adam holds his nose and goes looking behind the dumpster that belongs to the greasy spoon diner that backs onto the alley from the other side. Just one tiny golden unicorn stretching up to nuzzle Adam's fingertips, like a gold treasure in among the trash.

"I can't just leave you here," Adam says and the unicorn whuffs. "The rats will eat you alive." He thinks for a moment, looking up at the mostly-dark apartment block. It's Tuesday evening, late even by LA standards and most of the neighborhood is asleep. "You need to be really quiet for me, okay?"

The unicorn chirrups and rubs his shoulder along Adam's leg. His hooves clatter on the concrete and he has to trot just to keep up with Adam's walking speed.

"This isn't going to work," Adam peers around but they've been lucky. The streets are still deserted, thank God and he looks down at the unicorn. "Okay, let me just-"

The unicorn is heavier than he looks but still only half a stone or so. Adam scoops him up easily, the unicorn chirruping excitedly and wiggling around a little. His horn, small and almost hidden in his forelock, rips Adam's t-shirt across the chest and his hooves are fucking sharp but he lets Adam carry him upstairs and into his apartment. Adam puts him down so he can lock and deadbolt the door.

The unicorn starts exploring the tiny hallway, sniffing with interest at the psychedelic paper flowers Alisan brought him back from Burning Man and clattering happily into the living room. When Adam switches on the light, he realizes that the unicorn is trailing glitter like wisps of sparkling smoke behind him.

"I don't remember seeing anything about glitter-trails," Adam says as he watches the unicorn sniff the random potpourri in the hand-thrown bowl that Alisan made him. It's ridiculously lopsided and has fingerprints in every curve but Adam likes the colors It's got at least five types of potpourri in it because it's far too big for the standard packets that his mom buys him. "Oh, no! No, no, no, no. That is not food!"

He has to snatch the bowl away and the unicorn is tenacious, utterly fearless and can actually stand on the wall for a few seconds. He leaps around like a rubber ball, actually getting to eye-height to Adam for a few seconds on some of his more spectacular leaps.

"No! Stop it! No," Adam laughs, spinning away with the bowl held over his head.

The unicorn flicks his tail and stalks Adam around the living room. He's hilariously bad at it but he's stubborn. Adam has to climb up onto the sofa, balancing precariously on the back to escape. The unicorn leaps, lands on the satin cushion that Adam picked up for three dollars in some cheap thrift store back when Drake was poking him to renovate his apartment. The cushion goes skidding off the couch and the unicorn falls face-or rather _horn_ -first into the couch.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Adam drops the bowl onto the coffee table in his mad scramble to make sure that the unicorn hasn't killed himself. The unicorn pulls himself out of the couch cushions and chirrups pathetically. "Oh my poor baby!"

The unicorn cuddles shamelessly and Adam pets and soothes him until the unicorn is a lazy lump in his lap, chin on Adam's arm and tail curled loosely around his knee. Adam chuckles and the unicorn shifts but doesn't open his eyes. Adam thinks that he might have to sleep here. The unicorn is like some overgrown cat, growing exponentially heavier the longer he stays in Adam's lap.

Then the unicorn's stomach growls. It's an impossibly loud sound for such a tiny creature and his eyes pop open at the first rumble. He looks down at his stomach with wide, shocked eyes and Adam cracks up. He laughs and laughs until he can hardly breathe and the unicorn tries to kick him,

"Sorry! Sorry, sorry," Adam laughs. "Okay, right, so. What do unicorns eat?"

They have to explore Adam's kitchen three times because Adam hasn't gone grocery shopping in nearly a month before Adam remembers the tarts sitting in a paper bag on the counter. The unicorn spotted them first and is apparently attempting (unsuccessfully) to pull them down through spontaneous telekinesis. He nearly knocks Adam over again when Adam holds the bag out.

"Whoa there," Adam yelps and the unicorn practically dances around him, hooves clattering on the cheap tile. "Seriously-HEY, watch the _horn_!!"

It shouldn't be possible but the unicorn pouts up at him. He sits (and Adam can't figure out how exactly he makes his joints work like that) and turns big brown eyes on Adam who caves like a mudslide. He sits with his back to the cupboard and tears open the bag. Adam doesn't normally buy fruit tarts but he'd been so very late out of the meeting with his agent and feeling tender after image-dissection by proxy. The bakery across the street had been the only shop open and even that wasn't really open-open, just the staff opening the doors ready for the morning rush.

The tarts are strawberry with a honey glaze that turns the ripe berries a softer warm red. The unicorn nearly bites his hand off when one of the strawberry garnishes comes loose and slides down the back of his hand.

"Hey! Watch it," Adam holds the tarts over his head and the unicorn whines and sinks back onto his haunches, eyes fixed on the bag. "You must be starving, huh?"

The unicorn just keeps staring at the tarts and Adam doesn't want him to die of starvation but he doesn't want his unicorn choking on a tart that's at least half the size of his head.

"Okay," Adam says thoughtfully. "Right. I can work with this."

He winds up sitting on his kitchen floor, back against the refrigerator, feeding the unicorn chunks of tart by hand. The unicorn has really soft lips and small white teeth that look sharp but he's careful, licking the honey from Adam's hand when he's eaten his piece of the tart. Adam eats like one of the dozen tarts in the bag but the unicorn eats all the rest of them with the occasional chirrup of happiness. Adam's just starting to worry that he might have to feed the unicorn the three-day-old Thai or what ever scraps of organic pizza aren't actively moldy when the unicorn rests his chin on Adam's shoulder and sighs contently.

Adam ruffles his spiky mane and the unicorn huffs, blowing strawberry scented-air across Adam's face and making his bangs shift. The unicorn makes a questioning noise and this time, he huffs air deliberately at Adam's bangs and Adam squawks. The unicorn tips his head and Adam's certain he looks fascinated. Before he gets his hair blown off his head, or hit by accidental unicorn snot, Adam nudges the unicorn's nose away.

"No," he says firmly. "No blowing on hair in this flat unless you are a hairdryer. All right?"

The unicorn sighs again and leans into Adam's shoulder. Then he yawns, mouth opening in a dainty pink 'o' that makes Adam want to snuggle him and pet him and keep him forever. The unicorn's eyes slide half-closed and Adam feels his own exhaustion starting to seep through the surreal wonder of having a baby unicorn sitting in his kitchen.

"Right," he steadies the unicorn as he stands up. "Time for good little unicorns and rockstars to be in bed."

The unicorn chirrups sleepily, leaning most of his little weight against Adam's leg. Adam pets his mane and looks around.

"We'll need to get you a blanket or something," Adam says, mainly to himself. "Maybe the throw-rug on th-no, actually, no."

He remembers just in time that Brad and his last date were sleeping on the couch last Tuesday and there was a lot of giggling and a moan and Adam hasn't had a chance to scour it clean yet. The unicorn is wandering along beside him, still leaning into his leg every time he slows down enough.

"I think Neil might have sent a rug or a blanket or something. He's down South on a story," Adam rambles on about Neil a bit more as he searches his wardrobe for the big parcel in bacon wrapping paper (because Neil can never see something so painfully tacky without sharing). "It might suck, just so you know. I got all the good-taste genes in the family."

The package is even more hideous than he remembers and Adam rips it open. The blanket inside is plaid. It may, in fact, be the most _plaid_ plaid blanket Adam has ever seen and he shudders a little but, it's only one night, right? If the mom-unicorn hasn't shown up tomorrow, Adam will at least have time to go shopping.

"All right," Adam says thoughtfully. "This is totally temporary but it won't, I don't know, give you nightmares or anything?"

The unicorn yawns and Adam takes that as a reassuring answer. He dumps his stuff off the big beanbag in his room and drapes the blanket over it. He digs out the old sweat pants he sleeps in when he's got a guest and grabs his toothbrush. He has to turn on the taps while he's brushing his teeth so the unicorn can get a drink. The sink glitters by the time the unicorn drops back on to all fours and Adam's sweat pants are achieving new levels of fabulous.

"You totally need a name," Adam says. "Glitter-a-matic? Fabulous? What sort of names do unicorns generally have?"

The unicorn opens his eyes, gives Adam a disgusted glance and writes 'My name is Kris' in the air in sweeping golden lines that hang there for a second before disappearing in a puff of glittery smoke.

Adam gapes a little. "You- _what sort of name is **Kris** for a unicorn?!_ "

The unicorn - Kris - lifts his chin and sniffs.

"Also, you know English?" Adam adds belatedly. "And you can write English?"

Kris - and okay, it's not the name Adam would have chosen for an adorable golden baby unicorn but he kinda has to admit that it fits in some strange way that totally defies logic - rolls his eyes.

"I-I-unicorns can understand English?" Adam flails because, okay, he might not have memorized every unicorn fact ever like Brad and Drake did but he's fairly sure he'd know if unicorns did that!

Kris nods very slowly and Adam squeaks just a little. If he wasn't so tired, Adam thinks he might freak out a lot more but Kris leans into the door-frame and just looks at him and okay, fine.

"Fine," Adam waves a hand. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

Kris nods and follows him back into the bedroom.

"Oh, no," Adam says, pointing back at the beanbag. "That's your bed. You sleep there."

Kris' whole body seems to slump and he turns to his beanbag, head down and tail dragging on the floor. Adam steels himself and scoops Kris up to settle him in the middle of the beanbag. Kris rolls around a bit on his blanket and Adam thinks philosophically that even if Kris wants to keep it, it'll be totally covered in glitter inside a week. He stays by the beanbag, stroking Kris' neck until the unicorn falls asleep.

Adam stumbles back to his bed and face-plants into the sheets with the grace of a concussed hippo. He only just stays awake long enough to pull the covers over himself before he's asleep.

It's still dark when Adam wakes and a bleary look at his alarm clock confirms it's not quite four in the morning. He doesn't have to wonder what woke him for long. From the corner where Kris' beanbag is, there is a mournful chirrup. Adam closes his eyes and tries to pretend to be asleep but the most pathetic sound in the world turns out to be a baby unicorn trying to get out of an oversized beanbag.

Adam lasts maybe two minutes before folding like a bad poker hand. He rolls out of bed, waiting a second until his brains stop spinning and stumbles over to Kris. Kris has somehow managed to cocoon himself in the blanket, just his head and the very tip of his tail poking out of the complex knot of plaid. Adam doesn't even try to untangle him, just picks him up blanket and all and carries him back to bed.

Kris rolls around once Adam puts him down but settles as soon as he's managed to tuck himself up against Adam's side. Even through the blanket, Kris is like a pocket furnace and Adam can't be bothered to reach for the covers. Kris coos softly and Adam buries his face in his pillow and is awake just long enough to think that he won't ever be able to get back to sleep.

In the morning/early afternoon, Adam wakes from fuzzy dreams of Disney-like happy endings and mega-sized concerts. He thinks for a second that he must have dreamed the whole thing. Then a loud, nasal snore comes from the bundled up plaid blanket beside him.

Kris opens his eyes when Adam sits up, yawning and wiggling a little. What little Adam can see of his mane has passed beyond 'spiky' and into terminal 'bedhead' territory and he's glittered the pillow to the point that Adam has to squint to look at it in the sunlight. He's also 100% real and Adam grins goofily down at him.

Then his brain kicks in.

A baby unicorn. A baby unicorn in his apartment. Adam has a real, live, breathing unicorn in his apartment. This is awesome and _terrifying_ and Adam's starting to freak out so he does what he always does when he's freaked out. He calls Brad.

It's only twelve thirty, meaning a fifty-fifty chance that Adam's going to get him but he leaves a vague and somewhat panicked voicemail.

Kris is starting to seriously wiggle around. The plaid blanket seems to be made of sticky tape and chewing gum and he's floundering and probably making things worse. Adam hangs up and goes to rescue him. After five minutes carefully tugging on various gussets and folds, Kris bounds out of the blanket and chirrups excitedly at Adam before bounding off to explore the apartment.

He seems fascinated by windows and precariously stacked shelves and breakable or hazardous things. Adam gets enough time to set the coffee machine going before he has to start chasing Kris around the apartment and away from the many and varied ways he could hurt himself. It means that Adam's freakout gets pushed way, way back which is probably a good thing all things considered.

It also means when Brad finally shows up at the crack of afternoon - looking worried underneath his perfectly applied makeup - he finds Adam sprawled on the couch with his third cup of coffee and Kris chasing a chipped crystal ball around the floor like a kitten with a cat toy.

It's the first time in his life that Adam has seen Brad honest-to-God speechless. He stares at Kris for a whole minute while Kris scrabbles under the couch for his ball and chirrups crossly at Adam's feet until he moves them. Brad probably would have stayed staring for the whole day but Kris finally notices him and clatters over to sniff at the paper bakery bag Brad is clutching to his chest.

Brad's eyes are cartoonishly huge and Kris sniffs him thoroughly, chirrups and gallops back to the couch to poke Adam in the side with his horn.

"Please tell me you didn't stop at Starbucks," Adam says, waving his hand at the stack of books and leaflets on his coffee table.

"When did you get a crystal ball?" Brad demands shrilly.

"Wh-oh, that," Adam shakes his head. "One of Cassidy's guys left it here like a month ago. I gave him the beach ball first but he got excited and tried to headbutt it or something."

Brad follows Adam's finger to the shriveled husk of plastic in the corner. He takes a deep breath, releases his death grip on the paper bag one finger at a time and closes the door behind him.

"Okay," he says. "Right. That makes sense. Adam?"

"Yeah?" Kris is demanding pettings, burrowing under Adam's arm and Adam is finger-combing his mane.

"WHY DO YOU HAVE A UNICORN RUNNING AROUND YOUR APARTMENT!?!"

"Shush!" Kris jumps, startled by Brad's shriek and Adam strokes him soothingly, glaring at Brad and hushing Kris when he chirrups worriedly. "Keep your voice down, do you want to scare him to death!"

"Adam," Brad sighs dramatically when Kris turns wide eyes in his direction and scoots a little behind Adam. "Fine. I still want an answer."

"I found him," Adam explains the whole thing from the dumpster to the earlier voicemail. Brad folds his arms and he's staring at Kris in disbelief. He clearly doesn't want to believe a word Adam says but Kris is _right there_ and kinda irrefutable.

"Only you, sweetheart," Brad says eventually, digging through the bag and pulling out one of the strawberry muffins that the local organic cafe bakes fresh every morning and holding it out to Kris. Kris lights up, possibly literally and bounds across the couch (and Adam's lap) to gobble the whole thing in two big bites. "Aww, aren't you precious?"

"His name is Kris," Adam mentions and Brad snorts. "No, seriously. Kris, sweetie, can you tell Brad your name?" Kris looks up, cheeks still bulging with muffin and draws 'Kris' in loopy clumsy letters in the air. Brad gapes and Adam shrugs. "I know, right?"

"Okay," Brad shakes his head. "So, million dollar question time: now what do you do with him?"

Adam reluctantly admits that he's been looking into that. The nearest unicorn sanctuary is six hundred miles away and even if Adam could afford to hire a truck, pay for gas and take the time out from working on his first album? He'd still be dragging his feet. Kris is utterly adorable and incredible. The sanctuary wouldn't appreciate that, not like Adam does.

"So, can you keep him as, I don't know, a pet or a stage prop or something?" Brad asks sensibly, freeing Kris' ball from under the couch and rolling it across the floor to him.

Three solid hours of trawling through the depths of the US legal code later, Adam's forced to concede that he can't. Unicorns have an entire section of the Endangered Species Act devoted to them: one hundred and eighteen pages of Senate and Congress resolutions and amendments. There is a list of possible loopholes and the majority of it is on what Brad calls "shaky constitutional ground".

Californian law is even worse. Adam has been vaguely aware that the laws on conservation and protection of unicorns have been free-floating around the number eight spot on SUN's to-do list but he hadn't realized they were so comprehensively fucking stupid. There's no explicit law against having a unicorn in your home, Adam discovers. There are no fewer than six laws against _owning_ the unicorn taking up your couch.

Brad finds references to the various organizations that are allowed to keep unicorns. The restrictions are crazy; zoos have to have the unicorn screened thoroughly by a qualified vet who cannot be Catholic, Calvinist or Hinayana-Buddhist at bi-monthly intervals.

"So, by taking in small-and-adorable over there," Brad says finally, sitting back and pinching the bridge of his nose. "You are actually breaking a fuckton of state and city laws with a few federal laws thrown in if you squint."

"Looks like it," Adam admits.

"But if you left him to die," Brad says, running his hand through Kris' mane just to hear him chirrup happily. "You'd be a-okay in the eyes of the law? ...that is so fucked up."

"I know," Adam sighs. "But he doesn't want to leave."

They sit, staring at the papers for a few minutes. In the background, Kris is chirruping enthusiastically and pawing at his ball. The crystal sounds like a wind-chime every time Kris' hoof touches it. Adam drums his fingers on his leg.

"We need to see if his mom or any of his blessing are still around," Adam can't see how a fully grown unicorn could possibly be overlooked. "If we can find where he wandered away from and get him home, well, that's fine."

"Fine," Brad sighs, reaching for his phone like Adam's asked him to give up Gucci. "I'll make some calls.”

In the event, Adam doesn't actually do much of the searching himself. Kris turns shy when more people show up and glues himself to Adam's side. A fabulously dressed search party combing the alleys draws enough attention without including a sparkling gold unicorn colt and Kris proves to be a miniature Houdini when Adam tries to leave him in the apartment.

After a whole day of searching, Adam orders takeout for everyone and they have a council of war in his living room. It's packed full of SUN's finest and Adam's dearest friends (mostly the same people) and Adam waits until everyone's eaten before banging on the coffee table for attention.

Kris, who has been a mini-whirlwind of energy through the whole meal, bounces up onto the table and hops around so they have to wait until Adam can catch him before they start the discussion. It has to be Adam who catches him because while Kris is promiscuously cuddly, he doesn't let anyone else pick him up.

"All right," Adam says, Kris settled firmly in his lap. "So there's no sign of any other unicorns in the neighborhood"

"None whatsoever," Caroline mourns as she adds the last coat of polish to her nails. "If he wasn't right there, I would totally think you'd made this up."

There's a general mumble of assent from the rest of the group and Adam rolls his eyes. Kris is investigating the appliqué pattern on his t-shirt and getting glitter all over it in the process.

"Right, so what are our options?" He absently pushes Kris' nose away from the flaking pattern.

"Zoo?" Alisan suggests doubtfully to immediate uproar.

"San Diego Zoo hasn't got the facilities!"

"LA hasn't kept a captive unicorn alive more than a month!"

"They'll just sell him to some corrupt sponsor!!"

"Okay, so zoos are out," Brad says, waving his hands to calm the sullen muttering. "Sanctuaries?"

"There aren't any in LA county," Scarlett points out.

"Arizona had a couple but they've lost their state-funding," Caroline says. "We might try Mexico?"

"We'd never get him past border control," someone else points out while Cassidy shakes his head.

"It's a felony to move unicorns across international borders. With the population drop, the UN is encouraging countries to police animal trafficking better."

"So, what _are_ our options?" Adam asks.

There's a pause and Kris looks up at the circle of sweaty, exhausted, wonderful people with big brown eyes and chirrups. Some people can't meet his eyes and the general shuffling of feet and throat clearing spreads until Brad sighs.

"You could always try returning him to the wild?" Another pause as the group contemplates Kris who is chewing happily on the sleeve of Adam's T-shirt. "Okay, so that's a non-starter. I guess you're going to have to keep him your dirty little rockstar secret, babe."

Adam protests but only a little. Kris is snuggled happily into his lap and rubbing his cheek against Adam's shirt which is rapidly becoming more glitter than fabric. He hasn't even been part of Adam's life for a whole day and Adam can't imagine life without him already.

"And that means we need to start making plans," Scarlett says seriously. "You're starting recording tomorrow for fuck's sake."

Adam seriously contemplates calling in sick for a minute but it would be a shitty way to start his career and he knows it. Sighing deeply, he ruffles Kris' mane and looks around. "So, who's willing to babysit?"

Twenty minutes and a surprisingly ruthless game of rock, paper, scissors later, Brad and Alisan are making plans for indoor activities. Cassidy is studying Adam's shirt with a contemplative look on his face. Kris has chewed off a hem already, tugging at the edges of the fabric despite Adam's increasingly desperate efforts to hold him off.

"And we're going to need to rethink your wardrobe," he digs through his bag, pulling out the sketchpad and starting to scribble on the first half-blank page. "Lots more glitter."

"I think I'm covered, thanks," Adam says sourly, swatting Kris away for the hundredth time.

"That's kind of the problem," Cassidy says without looking up. "What if someone notices?"

"I'm a gay glam-rockstar," Adam points out. "People expect a little glitter."

"Right, that's what I'm thinking," Cassidy chews on his lip. "We just need to arrange your wardrobe so that people expect a _lot_ of glitter from you and no-one will think twice about your perpetual Tinkerbell impression."

"I hate you," Adam tells him as Kris wiggles around, sharp little hooves digging into Adam's flesh. "I really hate you."

"Of course you do, sweetheart," Cassidy smirks and reaches out without looking up to pat him on the head. Adam tries to bite him.

Adam finally kicks everyone out around midnight and immediately wishes he hadn't. Kris has been indoors all day and with so many glasses of juice and water around, he's practically hopping around with his legs crossed.

"Oh God," Adam moans but Kris is eying his laundry with what Adam recognizes as serious intent and Adam's laundry service is wonderful but he's so not explaining unicorn pee stains to them. "All right! All right! Just let me grab my coat."

Adam has the most awesome ankle length leather trench-coat which Brad unkindly suggests makes him look like a _Matrix_ reject. It's long and billowy and Adam can just about fit Kris under it if he keeps the bottom half buttoned and nobody notices the trail of glitter. They shuffle out to the elevator, Kris pressed against Adam's legs. He's too warm for Adam's comfort but Kris is mostly invisible. Adam can feel the sweat starting to seep into his jeans and Kris' racing heartbeat against his skin.

Thankfully, it's midweek and all responsible grown-ups are in bed and all party animals are still out closing down the clubs so there's no-one on the street when Adam peers up and down. He does the world's most suspicious power-walking impression across the street to where there's a tiny strip of straggling plants and weeds that claims to be a park.

Kris is making distressed peeping sounds as Adam fumbles for the buttons. Kris lunges out of the coat the second Adam gets it open and disappears behind a bed of overgrown and dried out roses. Adam turns his back, just in case Kris is shy. The park is dark, gloomy and the nearest street light is across the road. The park is full of bushes that rustle suspiciously and Adam hums to himself, rocking back and forth on his heels and trying to look as innocent and inconspicuous as possible.

 _Nothing to see here,_ he thinks with a manic little giggle. _Just a man waiting for his unicorn to take a leak._

There's another rustling sound, this time from behind him and Adam glances over his shoulder. He double-takes because the roses are starting to glow, a rising surge of green, fresh growth and the dried out buds fill slowly with sparkling light as they bloom in perfect, _glowing_ roses that look like they're made out of moonlight. The bushes sprout healthy green leaves and there's a sweet smell that makes Adam think of maple syrup.

Kris emerges from the rejuvenated thicket looking relieved and Adam pinches the bridge of his nose. "You are going to be the opposite of subtle, aren't you?"

Kris sniffs at the roses while Adam looks around at the spreading vines. When he looks back, Kris has a mouthful of glowing rose and is chewing happily.

"There is no way that is sanitary," Adam says blankly. Kris swallows and looks thoughtful. Adam puts his head in his hands. "I don't believe this. When they said unicorns made the grass grow, I didn't think they meant _by peeing on it_!"

Kris chirrups and goes off for a romp around the park, leaving Adam to text Brad a request to look into the unicorn equivalent of the litter tray.

Back in the apartment, Adam gets as far as looking at the beanbag before Kris' hangdog expression makes him sigh.

"Fine, but this is not becoming a habit, you understand?"

Kris, already curled up on his plaid blanket, lifts his head and yawns in Adam's face. Muttering darkly about plaid desecrating his bed and pushy little unicorns who are turning his apartment into a disco ball, Adam crawls into bed and sets his alarm for nine.

He's due at the studio at eleven which in theory leaves two hours to shower and make his way over in his own good time. In practice, Adam is woken by finely tuned make-up senses to the utter certainty that someone is touching his stuff. There is a noticeable lack of unicorn in his bed and Adam stumbles into the bathroom to find Kris standing on the counter, nosing through Adam's makeup bag.

He's got a new purple mustache courtesy of Adam's new Estée Lauder eyeshadow. Both jars of Adam's new Estée Lauder eyeshadow, in fact.

"You little-!" Adam flails. "You-you-you you son-of-a- _GOAT_!"

Kris leaps off the counter, landing on Adam's hairdryer with an ominous cracking sound. Adam dives for his flat iron but the cord has gotten tangled around Kris' fetlock somehow and it comes clattering off the counter when Kris dances away from Adam's grabbing hands.

Twenty five minutes later, Brad and Alisan let themselves in to find Adam, looking like he was dragged backwards through every hedge in the state, chasing Kris around the apartment with a crazed gleam in his eye. It takes another five minutes and both of the coffees Brad brought for Brad to calm Adam down. By that point, Kris has destroyed Adam's new make-up, both hairdryers and cracked his flat iron.

Alisan is sent on a muffin run when she tries to point out that Adam is just there to sing so the producers won't care what he looks like in the studio.

Kris is hiding behind the kitchen door, one eye peering out at Adam who is sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands and wondering why the hell he thought keeping a wild unicorn was a good idea. Brad leaves the last of the coffees and goes to clean Kris up. Adam can hear him talking to Kris who chirrups just once in reply.

A clean and very subdued unicorn comes trotting in just as Adam drains the last of the coffee and tries for the twentieth time to get his hair to lie flat. Kris sits just outside Adam's personal space and rests his chin on the couch cushion. Adam doesn't look at him. A minute later, Kris chirrups sadly.

Kris writes 'Sorry' in wobbly capital letters in the space between them.

Adam sighs and looks at him. Kris looks totally woebegone, mane still damp and flattened and eyes wide. Adam sighs again and reaches out to pet Kris who scoots closer immediately. He thinks about how he'd wanted to look his best, start his career as the glamorous, confident rock-star instead of the high school dweeb.

"Suck it up, Lambert," he says softly and rubs at his eyes. Before he can go find the perfect lip-gloss/eyeshadow combo for 'haystack' hair, Kris puts his fore-hooves on Adam's knees and leans up closer. "I know, I know, you didn't mean to break it, sweetheart."

There's a tingle in the air and Adam rears back when Kris puts his face right up close to Adam's. Kris inches closer and Adam feels the very tip of Kris' horn press against the middle of his forehead and Kris blinks. Then Adam blinks because something like a very faint electric charge just ran through his _face_.

"Wow," Brad says as he comes out of the kitchen, drying his hands. "Not bad, princess. You look kickass."

"I-what?" Adam says, looking away from Kris who drops back to all fours and edges back a little, head down.

"Like what you've done with the makeup," Brad runs a judgmental gaze over him and nods again. "And I don't know how you straightened your hair without an iron but you have got to teach me that trick!"

Adam goes back into the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. His makeup is perfect, just the right mix of smoky and crisp and his hair is sleek and perfect. Adam looks just like he wanted to for his first day. Kris squeezes into the bathroom, chin on the counter and chirrups hopefully. Adam laughs because, god, his life is already turning cartwheels.

He kisses Kris' nose and laughs at the way Kris scrunches up his face and gives Adam a suspicious sidelong glance.

"Come on, Cinders," Brad calls. "Time to get going before your ride turns into a pumpkin."

"Jerk," Adam says mildly, patting Kris and grabbing his bag. "Don't forget to take notes on what he can eat, all right?"

"I remember," Brad rolls his eyes. "You only reminded me a hundred times. Go, live the dream. We'll be here when you get back."

"You better be," Adam hugs Kris, adding another layer of glitter and then hugs Brad. "I'll be back late."

Adam's first day is in no way as glamorous as he'd imagined. There's an older producer with a greasy ponytail and the vacant stare of the perpetually stoned who hates everything that anyone else suggests and plays with the grubby iMac whenever anyone talks. There is Lanie, Adam's representative who is a Rottweiler in Roberto Cavalli and Darryl who is the label's man on the ground and sweats the whole way through the meeting. Darryl drinks like a camel, three bottles of water and half the dispenser.

Lanie takes Adam out for lunch at some ridiculous chic new cafe and raves about his 'professionalism' and "I love the glitter. Classy but easily overlooked. The label are going to love you."

"About that," Adam stirs the froth on his cappuccino. "I know it's too early to be thinking about it but the album art-"

"No, no," Lanie waves her hands. "Getting in early is crucial! Design starts talking about the cover on Monday. If you've got a suggestion, you need to get it in now."

"Well," Adam plays with the chocolate shaker. "You know I'm president of Save the Unicorns Now?"

"Very good choice," Lanie nods. "Unicorns are so twee that they're practically counter-cultural right now. Why-oh! Oh, I see! You want to adopt the unicorn motif?"

"Yeah but," Adam thinks of Kris and his fearless curiosity. "Not the vacant twinkly kind of unicorn. I want it to be fierce and proud, you know? The kind of unicorn that isn't afraid of anything and just knows it's awesome."

Lanie hems and haws until Adam offers to share his electronic copy of 'Living Fable: The Story of Courage'. Lanie walks him back for the auditions and Adam leaves her in one of the offices with her earphones plugged in and the opening music of 'Living Fable' just starting.

Auditions are nightmarish: Adam has no idea what the label is thinking with pretty much every one of the thirty musicians he sees that day. Adam has three simple questions about his prospective band.

 _1\. Can they play music?_

The first five guitarists play their pieces without noticing (or caring) that the guitar is out of tune. The first drummer has no sense of rhythm and throws up on the drums halfway through the sixth bar. Adam crosses their names off the list with a red pen and some totally necessary exclamation marks added for emphasis.

 _2\. Would I be willing to share a tour bus and/or stage with this person?_

One in three of the musicians turns up unwashed and one woman with scratch marks who reeks of cat pee. Adam crosses every single one of them off his list the second he lays eyes on them. He crosses the cat lady off twice.

Most of the prospective musicians are gay, which Adam appreciates: most of them are divas, which he does not. Adam is no stranger to the need for the occasional bitch-fit but he flat out refuses to be out-bitched in _his_ damn band. The last thing he needs is for his first tour to be remembered for the 'Eyeliner Shank Murder' or something like that.

The rest of the prospects seem fine but there's a vibe that Adam doesn't like. He doesn't even try to articulate it and Darryl, who turns out to be a sweaty superhero, doesn't ask. He simply respects Adam's list and the crossed out names are dismissed. There are only three people in the whole audition pool who get past Adam's first two questions.

 _3\. Would this person understand about Kris?_

Brutal honesty applies here, Adam is self-aware enough to know that the only way anyone is taking his unicorn is from Adam's cold, dead and broken hands. He's also realistic enough to know that this is at best, highly illegal so whoever Adam does wind up with has to be someone he can trust.

He asks a lot of questions of the three survivors: Lewis, staunch Republican and awesome guitar player: Andrea, lifelong vegan and rocking bass player and Robert, libertarian and drums master. It takes nearly two hours but Adam crosses them all off the list by the end of the day.

Darryl proves to be super understanding and tells Adam not to worry about it. "We'll start again tomorrow afternoon."

"Afternoon?" Adam has an eight am start according to his phone.

"Your assistant said you have a meeting with Marketing or something," Darryl shrugs. "I didn't ask. Better not to know."

"Oh," Adam says. "Well, thanks and I'll see you tomorrow evening then."

Lanie isn't there but she's left a long note punctuated with multiple exclamation points. Adam stuffs it into his jacket pocket and goes to grab a cab home. He's feeling drained but pretty good. He's most of the way home before he remembers Lanie's note and goes digging through his pockets.

Lanie's handwriting is crazy - all loops and swirls and little hearts on the 'i's and the note is seriously sixty percent exclamation point. Adam has to read it four times before he's got any clue what she's trying to say. He _thinks_ she thinks that the label will love the unicorn angle and she's going to handle it all. Adam hopes that's mostly true.

His building is still standing when he pays the cab and stretches his back out, which is good. He'd worried a little. The elevator has an out-of-order sign so Adam tramps up hundreds of stairs in barely-broken-in-boots. He's limping as he fumbles for his keys.

Before he can find the right key, there's a clatter from inside the apartment: what sounds like Brad shouting something and a solid thump that shakes the whole door. Adam leans back a little, eying the door while searching frantically for his key.

Brad opens the door, looks at Adam then turns to look over his shoulder. "Yeah, okay, it's Adam. Next time wait until he's _inside_ the apartment."

Adam can see the gold of Kris' coat behind Brad's legs. Kris is picking himself up and shaking his head. He looks a little dazed and Adam stares at him. Brad pulls him into the apartment and closes the door. Adam can see a dent with a glitter splatter fringe around it and he turns to Brad in horror.

"Don't start," Brad warns and Kris flings himself at Adam, making delighted sounds and utterly heedless of where he's pointing his horn.

"Okay, yes, yes," Adam laughs, dropping to his knees so Kris can snuggle up and chirrup excitedly into his ear. "Easy, easy! Watch the horn! I missed you too."

Brad rolls his eyes and leaves Adam to be obnoxious and baby talk Kris in the hall. Kris draws lopsided golden hearts all around Adam and presses up against him, mane scratchy-soft against the underside of Adam's chin. Adam giggles like a teenage girl and kisses Kris' cheek.

It takes at least five minutes before Kris is willing to let Adam up and even then, he stays glued to Adam's side, bouncing and gleeful. Kris actually kicks up his heels and Adam laughs and scruffles his mane.

Brad and Alisan are sprawled out on the couch, Alisan's laptop and Adam's emergency gin bottle on the coffee table. Both of them have their eyes closed. Kris bounces up onto the couch and sniffs curiously at Alisan's face. She swats him away without opening her eyes.

"No, baby, not right now," Kris makes a sorrowful sound and bounds back over to jump into Adam's lap. "Auntie Alisan is tired."

"We need to figure out what we're going to do tomorrow," Brad says grimly.

"What happened?" Adam wants to know, petting Kris who makes a throaty happy sound like a purr. "Why do we need to do something tomorrow?"

"Because there is not enough designer boots nor 5-star spas to compensate for the ten years your unicorn has taken off my life," Brad says tartly. "It took us four hours to explain that you weren't gone forever-"

"Did you know unicorns can cry?" Alisan asks the ceiling. "And it's like having someone break your heart every. single. time."

"Seriously," Brad agrees. "He spent all morning staring wistfully out the window and getting excited every time he saw a cab. Then when he realized it wasn't you coming back, he started crying again."

"Poor baby," Adam coos and Kris leans into his fingers, eyes half-closed.

"Then Brad gave him a Twinkie," Alisan says bitterly.

"There's nothing in any of the reports I've read about unicorns not eating processed food," Brad defends himself. "How was I supposed to know?"

"You should have known better than to feed him so much sugar anyway," Alisan says severely.

"What happened?" Adam demands. Kris looks to be fine when he looks him over, worried.

"Look for yourself. Alisan took pictures," Brad says. "We're thinking of writing an article for _Unicorn Monthly_."

"It's all in there," Alisan reaches out and pushes her laptop across the coffee table with her foot. "We used spreadsheets and made a slide-show."

Adam leans across Kris and clicks through the slide-show which is named 'The Dummies Guide to Unicorn Nutrition’. Adam starts worrying from there.

The first slide has 'Twinkie' in the title and there's a picture (probably taken with Brad's cell phone) of...Well, it's definitely Kris, with the golden coat and big brown eyes. Kris-in-the-photo looks fat. Obese, even, with rolls of fat pooling around his fetlocks and his belly nearly touching the floor. His head is down and he looks exhausted just standing there and the lighting makes him look like a wax candle melting in the sun. Adam hugs Kris-in-his-lap tightly, eyes wide with horror.

"That lasted nearly half an hour," Alisan says with a shudder. "Poor baby kept wheezing every time he tried to move."

"No-one is to feed Kris Twinkies ever again," Adam says, cuddling Kris closer. "Ever, ever, _ever_ again."

"I only had a Twinkie because the coffee shop was giving them away with the coffee," Brad protests. "But Kris went back to normal after like half an hour and Alisan started experimenting."

"She what?" Adam turns to glower at her.

"We needed to know what he could eat," Alisan protests. "It's not like we have a field he could graze in or anything!"

Adam concedes her point reluctantly and turns his attention back to the laptop. The next slide has 'Pretzels' in the title and another photo of Kris, who looks like he's on the verge of dying of thirst. The slide after that is called 'White Bagel’ and Kris looks like his golden coat has tarnished. There are eighteen slides altogether, chronicling everything they fed Adam's poor defenseless unicorn. There’s even a ‘Ma Po Tofu’ slide.

“We ordered in Chinese for lunch,” Brad defends himself. The photo shows Kris looking slender and with a weird rainbow overtone. There's a photo of a Chinese ' _Qilin_ ' from Wikipedia pasted in beside the picture and they look nearly identical.

The last slide is labeled 'Laffy Taffy' and shows Kris with his front hooves on the windowsill. The sun is shining, Adam can see the light through Kris. In fact, Adam can see the shape of the windowsill through Kris' neck and legs. Kris looks like he's made out of -"plastic," Adam says out loud.

"Yeah," Brad sighs. "Anything too processed turns him into plastic. Which is not something you want to see in a kitchen full of hot things and with the temperatures hitting 100+ outside."

"We used like, your entire stock of ice," Alisan says. "And you should clean the drain out in your bath occasionally."

"Yeah," Adam hugs Kris until he squeaks. "So he can't eat _anything_?"

"No, he can't eat _processed_ food," Brad corrects. "Organic food is fine. Homemade is okay but anything with a wrapper..."

Brad trails off, shrugging a little and Adam relaxes. "Organic, okay. I can do organic."

"Also," Alisan interrupts. "You have a planter."

"You have four planters," Brad corrects primly. "Golden Wonder needed more space."

"Wait, what?" Adam looks from Alisan to Brad, bewildered. "Why do I have planters?"

"Because we couldn't find a litter tray that would fit him," Brad says, pointing at Kris who has rolled over so Adam can rub his belly and has all four legs in the air in the most undignified manner possible. "But your balcony garden is coming up beautifully."

"I don't have a balcony garden," Adam protests. "It's North-facing, never gets enough sun and even the weeds won't grow."

"That was before you had him peeing on them," Alisan points out dryly. "Trust me, you have a garden; an awesome, _awesome_ garden with enough greenery that no-one will see Kris going out there without like a heat detector or something."

"Oh god," Adam moans.

"So, that's settled," Brad says, waving his hands. "How did your first day as a rockstar go?"

Adam tells them about the band auditions and how he hadn't liked any of them and how Lanie had been converted to the Unicorn Side and was apparently getting his entire team onside. Brad laughs and promises to send her all the SUN pamphlets he can lay his hands on.

Alisan mixes up some cocktails and they drink a toast to Lanie. Then they drink one to Micheal. Then Brad proposes a toast to Cassidy for having the idea. Then they drink a toast to Kris for supplying the glitter in the first place. Alisan has to raid Adam's fridge for ingredients and crank up the air-conditioning at some point.

They're drinking a toast to the cab driver for getting Adam home when Adam realizes that Kris isn't napping beside his armchair anymore. Then he realizes that Kris isn't in the room.

"Where's Kris?" Adam asks.

"Right the-" Brad trails off and they look around. "I have no idea. Where _is_ Kris?"

They search the apartment, sobering up by the second and there's no sign of Kris. Brad suggests they check all the windows, starting with the bedroom window which Adam can fit through. They work their way down to the kitchen window is the size of a letter box and so high that Adam has to stand on a chair to open it. The kitchen window is also open and there's glitter on the bottom of the frame.

"How the _hell_ did he fit through there?!" Alisan demands in disbelief.

"God knows," Adam says distractedly. "The fire escape passes that window, come on!"

They pick up the trail on the fire-escape and follow it down to the alley where Adam found Kris nearly two days ago. The diner is starting to close up for the night and Adam can smell BBQ sauce and sizzling grease. The bottom of the fire escape isn't down but there are hoof-prints on the lid of the dumpster beside it. It's only about eight feet down but the alley is rank with old rubbish and the top of the dumpster looks greasy and filthy.

Adam jumps anyway because Kris could be anywhere or hurt and he doesn't have time to go all the way back up to his apartment and back down again. There's glitter on the dumpster about the right height to have come from Kris' shoulder but it's leading _into_ the alley, not out of it.

Adam ventures deeper into the alley, Brad and Alisan complaining in stage whispers behind him. There's nothing in the bottom of the alley except a battered steel door that's probably older than Adam that is open just a crack. There's steam escaping into the cooler night air and the smell of burgers and frying onions.

He hesitates at the door, wondering if he should knock or something but a familiar chirrup from inside makes the question moot. Adam crashes through the door like the wrath of god, Brad and Alisan right behind him. That kitchens come with knives and graters and a hundred legal and terrifying sharp utensils doesn't occur to Adam until he's got an eight inch butcher knife at his throat.

He doesn't think the guy actually wants to kill him. It's hard to tell because the guy is screaming at him with a thick New York accent liberally sprinkled with profanity. Adam holds up both hands and hopes like hell the guy really doesn't want him dead.

There is another chirrup and Kris comes charging around the kitchen counter, head and tail up and making a shrill sound that makes Adam's ears feel like some-one's taken a cheese-grater to them. The guy with the knife looks down and Kris forces himself between the guy and Adam, snorting and stamping threateningly.

The guy would make like three of Adam with enough mean left over to fill a shipping container but he backs up like Kris is a rabid Pit Bull, hands up and says something in rapid-fire Spanish. Kris is bristling, fluffed up and stamping his hooves.

"Hey," Adam says, putting out a hand carefully. "Easy there, tiger."

Kris snorts but lets Adam put a hand on his back. Adam smooths his fur back down while Kris glowers at the guy. It buys Adam a few seconds to think of how the hell he's going to explain this but the guy looks at him, then Kris and nods like Adam's explained everything. He sticks the knife into the counter beside him with one swift movement and shouts back into the kitchen proper.

"Raoul?" A woman comes through the narrow gap between the wall and the freezer, wearing a grubby apron and with bleached blond curls escaping from a bun. She looks about the same age as Adam's mom, plump and with more confidence in her little finger than Adam's had in his whole life. "Que?"

"I'm really sorry," Adam starts, hand still on Kris who is still watching Raoul(?) suspiciously. "I just-I was looking for my-my...Kris?"

"Kris?" The woman asks, pointing at Kris with the spatula in her hand.

"Yeah," Adam scratches his nails lightly against Kris' spine and Kris' tail swishes sharply, the little fluffball on the end smacking into Adam's knee. Adam smiles goofily down at him.

"Come," the woman blessings them through the kitchen, out into the diner and across to a booth with cracked pleather seats. Kris hops up nimbly and Brad and Alisan squash in beside Adam. It's a tight squeeze, all four of them crowded together. The woman takes up the whole other side of the booth and watches them for a minute. "You are from the house behind us, yes?"

"I am," Adam says, holding out his free hand. "Adam Lambert."

"Martina Coppe," she says and Adam just manages not to yelp at the strength of her grip. "You are the boy who owns the unicorn?"

"Well, I wouldn't say 'owned'," Adam says honestly as Kris butts his hand into optimum scritching position and sighs happily. "I found him and well, there weren't any other unicorns and there didn't seem to be any better options so I'm giving him a place to stay."

Martina is watching Kris with fond eyes, hands folded over her stomach and she smiles at him.

"You are good boy, Adam Lambert. He's in good hands with you."

"I really hope so," Adam says fervently. "I am very sorry that he broke in and, well, you know that I broke in after him."

"A unicorn's visit is a gift," Martina dismisses. "And it is good that you came looking for him."

"But why did he come in here?" Brad asks, watching Kris lean into Adam. "I mean, no offense, but this place only sells grease, fat and meat."

Martina's eyebrows shoot up and Adam and Alisan cringe away from Brad a little. She waves to the hatch and shouts something that Adam doesn't catch. Someone waves a hand through the hatch but Martina doesn't look away from Brad.

"In my diner, we cook!" She says tartly. "Just as my mother - God and his saints preserve her - would want. There are vegetables - my sister Naomi and her man grow them fresh and send them to me straight - and Santos bakes better than most of the bakers in this city. We do not sell 'grease' or 'fat' here."

"Fine," Brad rolls his eyes. Adam and Alisan lean a little further away. "Still, what did he want here that he couldn't get back home?"

A tall young man with a scraggly beard and the hairiest eyebrows Adam's ever seen comes out from behind the counter carrying a small bowl. Kris sniffs the air and sits bolt upright. The guy puts the bowl down by Martina's elbow, staring wide-eyed at Kris who is totally focused on the bowl and straining across the table towards it.

Martina dismisses the boy with a queenly wave of her hand that Cleopatra would have envied. She nudges the bowl to where Kris can reach it and Adam nearly loses an eye when he tries to see what it is and Kris dunks his nose in at the same time. There's a tangy teasingly familiar scent in the air.

"BBQ sauce?" Adam says in disbelief. "He broke out of a tenth floor apartment and into your diner for some BBQ sauce?!"

"It's my own special recipe," Martina says complacently, looking at Brad's bug-eyed expression with satisfaction. "Famous and very, very good. He has taste!"

"Um," Adam looks down at Kris who is about halfway through the bowl already. "I don't suppose you bottle it?"

"No," Martina says with a thoughtful look at him. "I make fresh, but you are a good boy. We will see what can be done for you."

"Thank you," Adam looks at Kris who is busily licking up a few spilled drops. "Seriously, I don't think my heart could take another shock like that."

They chat some more and Adam finds out that the diner is Martina's, inherited from her father, "although it was my mother - God and the Virgin watch over her - who did most of the work."

Business is middling to bad; there's a McDonalds on each corner of the block and Martina candidly admits that she can't compete with their prices. Martina has three sons, two daughters, an ex-husband and a very-much-current girlfriend. All of them work for her and Martina doesn't sleep at night sometimes with the worry.

This time, Adam spots the speculative gleam in Brad's eyes and backs out of the conversation, pleading exhaustion and the need to put Kris to bed. Kris is half-asleep and sprawled out over Adam's lap. Martina ruffles his forelock and Kris nuzzles against her hands sleepily. She and Alisan are talking Feng Shui and color schemes while Brad reads the menu and asks searching questions about calories and organic certification.

None of them notice Kris and Adam sneaking out but that's okay. Adam carries Kris into the elevator before he even thinks to check for anyone watching. He peers around when the doors open but the hallway to his apartment is empty. He is such a total flake at keeping secrets, Adam thinks gloomily.

"Not that you're helping," he complains to Kris who is happily ensconced in his blanket and already snoring. "You're like the anti-secret. People are just going to look at me and know that I have a secret unicorn hiding in my apartment."

Kris snores a little louder and Adam pulls a pillow over his head to sulk.

The next day goes pretty well, Lanie has the album executives primed for their meeting with a whole white board covered with pictures of Courage and Adam gets his unicorn-album proposal accepted. He puts a call into Scarlett who is unicorn-sitting and begs for her to have some sketches he can give Lanie as soon as possible.

"You want me to base the design on your boy?" Scarlett asks. "I've gotten some cool shots and he's a little punk, so he'd totally work with your idea."

"That works," Adam says relieved before Darryl drags him off to another endless day of auditions that seems to last at least a year.

The good news is that Adam doesn't have to veto a single musician. The bad news is that Adam doesn't get to vote because they're all eliminated before his opinion is asked for. Every candidate that afternoon is eliminated by Darryl, on the basis of background checks not working out or Terry the greasy pony tail guy, on the basis of being functionally tone deaf.

Adam is pissy when he stomps home but his mood starts to lighten the second he hears the thump of Kris forgetting again that the door has to be open before he can pounce Adam. Kris is just as delighted to see him and twice as hyperactive, prancing around like a drag queen on speed and Adam laughs at him.

Kris actually does knock Adam over when Adam brings out a fresh bag of strawberry tarts and Scarlett and Cassidy laugh at them both.

Adam orders from Martina's diner and the awkward young man with hairy eyebrows comes over with cartons full of delicious food; tender chicken, seasoned with a dash of lemon and crisp skinned and fresh crunchy lettuce in big leaves with mouth-watering dressings in pots. There's a pot of BBQ for Kris who has a little BBQ mustache until Cassidy, still cackling wipes his mouth.

"So," Scarlett says tentatively. "Do you want to see those sketches?"

"Oh hell yeah," Adam says enthusiastically, making grabby hands from where Kris has him pinned to the sofa. "Give!"

"I can work on other designs if you want," Scarlett offers after Adam has stared at her sketchpad for five straight minutes in stunned silence.

"God, no!" Adam is already shaking his head, flicking through the pages with wide eyes. "These are-they're perfect, baby doll. Just what I wanted."

There's a lot of pictures of Kris from dignified and classical poses to Kris on his back with all four hooves and tail in the air. They look awesome and Adam's already marked a few out as possible commission pieces for later. He loves the stylized work; a Kris-shaped unicorn in the rampant heraldic pose with strong confident lines like a tribal tattoo.

"That one," Adam says immediately. "I want that one."

"I like that one," Scarlett says, laughing. "But you know your label gets a say too, right?"

"I want it," Adam says stubbornly. "Could you prep it for a tattoo?"

Scarlett blinks. Cassidy claps her on the back and grins. "I-sure?"

Kris chirrups approval of his plan and Adam emails his greater social circle for parlor recommendations and offers a hearty toast to Scarlett.

It's the last thing that week to go in Adam's favor; the auditions are hell and while Lanie and the concept artists love Scarlett's work, they have to have all these serious meetings and talk about copyright and all the rest of the legal stuff that Adam doesn't understand. He's pulling twelve hour days and it's harder every morning to roll out of bed and get into work.

Kris starts making this soft distressed chirruping sound when Adam goes to leave in the morning, clattering anxiously along right behind Adam. He's always at the window when Adam gets into the cab and he's always ecstatic when Adam comes home. More worryingly, Kris stops eating when Adam isn't there during the day, then stuffing himself at night when Adam's _there_.

He's going to make himself sick and Adam worries obsessively over him. Unicorns weren't meant to live in apartments without any place to exercise and living on organic vegetables and diner food. If Kris gets sick, what is Adam supposed to do anyway? There isn't a unicorn vet in California that he knows of. Do vets learn how to treat unicorns? Are all unicorns like Kris?

Kris has shown Adam exactly how much he didn't know about unicorns; the glitter, the feeding restrictions, the profusion of plants and the magical horn. Unless vets learn from a top-secret book that no one else can see, any vet trying to treat Kris will know less than Adam does and that's not a comforting thought.

"This has to stop," Brad announces on Friday. They're at the park, Kris frolicking happily through the overgrown grass and popping up every now and then to check Adam is still there. "We can't keep going like this."

Adam sighs and Kris chirrups, bumping his nose against Adam's hip and Adam combs his fingers through Kris' mane. He can't even start to imagine what he's going to do if his music career collapses before it really starts. On the other hand, he has a real life baby unicorn living in his apartment who adores him and thinks he's awesome. How many people would kill to have his life right now?

"Stop looking so melodramatic," Brad pokes him painfully hard in the side and Adam yelps in a totally dignified and manly manner. Kris skitters around him, chirruping and Brad sniggers at them both. "It's not the end of the world. You just have to take him with you."

"I-you-!?!?" Adam manages, staring at Brad who insists on looking sane despite clearly having lost his mind. "Are you fucking crazy? You want to help me hide a _unicorn_ in the middle of a studio that's crammed with publicity people and _agents_!?"

"You're going to be such a diva about this," Brad sighs and he sits on a park bench, tucking his fingers into his sleeves. Kris goes zooming past after a moth who seems equally taken with his glitter and Brad smiles fondly. "Honestly, I don't know what the big deal is. You're going to have to tell _some_ people about him, you're going on tour in a few months aren't you? Your band - whoever they turn out to be - will have to know and have to be able to keep the secret."

"And the hundred or so people working for the big scary music industry who would sell their grandmothers and the family silver for a fistful of dollars?" Adam demands. He's probably going to lose this argument; Brad knows him too well and is capable of a scary degree of focus but Adam's going down fighting dammit! "How exactly am I going to hide a glittery gold unicorn from a hundred people who want to steal him or tell the world he's there?"

"Details," Brad dismisses airily. "You have like a hundred people in SUN who can totally come up with a cover story. You just have to ask."

"Just like that?" Adam says skeptically.

"Just like that," Brad replies smugly, holding out his hand to Kris who had come back in search of the apples he believes every human carries in their pockets for him, not that he's always wrong. "Trust me."

Put like that, there's really nothing Adam can say but "Yes, fine."

It turns out to be disgustingly easy to smuggle Kris into the studio. The guards on reception are happy to focus on Scarlett (and her truly impressive cleavage) when Adam brings her and her 'design folders' in for a meeting with Lanie that she's hours too early for. Nobody comments on Adam's leather coat or the almost invisible trail of glitter and Adam lets Kris out once they're safely in his office.

Kris is fascinated by Adam's tiny office and sniffs at everything. Scarlett giggles and Adam drinks a _lot_ of coffee. Scarlett disappears off for her meeting and Mitch wants him for some recording stuff so Adam locks Kris in his office with a bowl of water, repeated orders to stay right there and not to move until Adam comes back and instructions to pee on the limp looking fern if he has to use the little unicorns room.

So, _naturally_ , when Adam comes back two hours later, the door is unlocked, the fern is threatening to take over the room and there's no sign of Kris. Adam works his way through every bad word he knows, twice and starts searching for Kris, muttering darkly about leashes and keepers.

The studio is gray and dull and dimly-lit and it absolutely should not be possible for a gold unicorn who sheds glitter to disappear in it! Adam can feel the beginnings of a panic attack building and tries very hard not to hyperventilate.

"Kris?" He calls hoarsely down yet another gray corridor with plastic plants and uncomfortable chairs. "Kris? C'mon, this isn't funny!"

Finally, after what feels like an eternity of gray corridors, Adam hears an answering chirrup and the sound of Kris' hooves on cheap loop-pile carpets. Kris comes charging down the hallway like a homing missile and Adam has to step smartly to the side.

"Watch the horn! Watch the horn!" Kris skids to a halt, winding up sitting on his butt and looking confused. Adam does not even want to think about how bad a case of carpet burn Kris has right now so he starts with the scritches immediately. "There you are! What are you doing out here? What happened to 'stay in the office', huh?"

"Um," someone behind Adam clears his throat and Adam's stomach turns to ice and sinks to the bottom of his boots. "I, uh, I think my lunch happened?"

Adam risks a look around and there's a (very) pretty boy with bleached blond hair and long dark eyelashes standing behind him, holding out a Tupperware container with a few sad sprigs of lettuce in the bottom. Kris peers around Adam and whickers wistfully. The boy's bright blue eyes go a little soft and Adam relaxes, just a little.

"Hey, I got the jui-" another guy comes around the corner with three bottles of different juices in his hands, a taller guy with four water bottles tucked under his arms behind him. "Tommy? Oh."

Adam looks at him, then back to where Kris is charming the last of Tommy(?)'s lunch out of the Tupperware and holds his hand out.

"Hi, I'm Adam," he nudges Kris in the side with his knee and Kris leans into him. "I gather you've already met Kris."

"Tommy Ratliff," Tommy introduces himself then nods to the guy with the juice. "And that's Monte and LP."

The tall guy with the water nods to Adam. Kris leans more heavily into Adam and after a second holds up his front hoof with deliberate care. (Adam is totally revoking Brad's babysitting rights as soon as he can prove Brad's the one who's been teaching Kris to shake.) Tommy takes Kris' hoof politely, the beginnings of a radiant smile stealing across his face. Monte reaches out to pet Kris' mane carefully, a genuine wonder cracking his LA-appropriate expression.

"Come on," Adam says before the situation can get any more awkward. "I don't want anyone else to see him. My office is just down there."

It's not really a lie, Adam's nearly certain he remembers where his office is and after five minutes of pretending to know where he's going, he actually finds it. Well, more accurately Kris does and Adam gets to hold the door open for Tommy, LP and Monte. They look at Adam then at each other and Adam can practically hear the 'And _this_ guy has a _unicorn_?"

He's going to love this conversation. Adam can just _tell_.

The office had never been intended to hold more than two people and the fern has taken up most of the room so they have to squash into the third of the office that's left. Adam scoops Kris up into his lap and Monte winds up leaning back into the door. Tommy is nearly completely hidden by fern because he's the only one who fits into the second chair but he's still stroking Kris' neck. There is a long awkward pause while Adam tries to figure out where to start.

"So," he says finally. "This is going to sound rude. But you guys, you all work here."

Monty and LP shake their heads and the fern fronds hiding Tommy's head bounce back and forth.

"You're all friends though?"

"Seen LP on a few auditions," Monte admits. "Don't think we've ever said more than 'hi' though."

LP nods and Tommy elbows the fern out of his way. "I don't think I've ever met you guys before."

"Huh," Adam looks down at Kris who has his eyes half-closed and is tilting his head up so Tommy can scratch under his chin. "You guys seemed fairly tight."

"Unicorn-care is a bonding experience," LP rumbles and Monte laughs.

"Ain't that the truth? I ran into Tommy trying to hide the little guy and raid the vending machine at the same time." Monte leans forward to ruffle Kris' mane. "He's a handful. LP was looking for a coffee or something. He came up behind me."

LP nods and Tommy pipes up. "I ran into Kris when I was coming out of the bathroom. He looked...worried, I guess?"

"How long had you been in the bathroom?" Monte asks, grinning easily.

"I needed to redo my eyeliner," Tommy huffs.

"Clinique Kohl Shaper?" Adam asks after a quick glance.

"Ye-ah?"

"That's the same one I use," Adam explains. Kris must have gone looking for Adam. What it says about their relationship that Kris apparently started with the little boys powder room is something Adam's putting off obsessing over. "He has a seriously low boredom threshold."

"He's really your unicorn?" Tommy asks, fingers curling to stroke Kris' cheek.

"Kinda," Adam shrugs. "He lives with me and I feed him."

"What, like a pet?" Monte sounds dubious.

"More like a cheap-skate room-mate," Adam waves his hand dismissively. "He's...he's just Kris."

Kris twists his head to bump his nose against Adam's chest and chirrups. Adam pets him and Kris tugs at his jacket, eyes wide and hopeful. Adam rolls his eyes.

"You know what would be awesome?" He asks Kris as he rummages through his jacket's inside pocket. Kris chirrups again. "If you let me have five whole minutes before establishing that I'm whipped."

Monte laughs and LP smiles as Adam fishes out the waxed paper pack of almonds and Kris wiggles excitedly, humming happily.

"Hey, hey! Horn!" Adam warns as he ducks automatically. Kris pauses and chirrups apologetically and resettles himself so he can stare hopefully at the almonds. "Better."

Adam chats with the three guys while Kris munches happily through the entire package of nuts. Adam's going to have start packing a bigger lunch box, possibly the same size as his fridge. Monte seems like a cool guy, eager and interested in music even if he admits he's no good at writing his own songs. LP turns out to be a drummer who doesn't talk but Adam can see the softness in his eyes when he looks at Kris and he thinks LP's probably a pretty cool guy. Tommy turns out to be straight underneath his eyeliner and peroxide blond but he's adorably snarky and admits to playing bass.

They're all here for the next round of auditions _for Adam's band_. Adam likes the energy in the room, likes the way Tommy's chatter offsets LP's silence and how Monte can roll with any quirk of the conversation. They all transparently adore Kris who lets them all pet and fuss over him. Adam listens to them arguing over favorite songs and thinks _Yeah, this will work._

He calls Darryl after about twenty minutes, stepping out of the office and leaving the other three to play with Kris for a minute. He takes his iPod with him and nothing else is breakable or irreplaceable. Darryl is more than happy to set up the auditions out of sequence. It's been nearly two weeks and they're starting to run out of potential musicians.

With three other guys, Adam even manages to smuggle Kris down into the studio. He hides Kris under a hoody that might belong to Tommy and tells him sternly to stay put in the corner. Kris nods solemnly and curls up, only his eyes, nose and the very tip of his horn showing as Darryl finishes shaking hands with LP. Darryl takes his seat and Tommy tunes his bass.

Adam sits in the second chair where he can keep one eye on the audition and one on Kris who looks fascinated by the music. The auditions are magic; there isn't another word for it. It's like that perfect night when everyone's _on_ and there isn't a single wrong note and Adam taps his chair in time to the beat.

When Darryl sits back, Monte's last notes still hanging in air, and smiles, Adam knows they've got it. Darryl sends Monte back out to the waiting rooms and turns to Adam. "I think we've got our band. You might need a few soloists for some of the sessions but I think those three should work out."

"Yeah," Adam says, glancing back at the wide brown eyes peering out from under Tommy's hoody and smiling. "I think they'll work out just fine."

Darryl goes to break the good news to Adam's new band and Adam smuggles Kris back to the office. Kris is humming, almost too quietly for Adam to hear. It isn't until Adam really focuses that he realizes Kris is humming 'Come Together': the last song Monte played. Kris' tail is flicking in time and Adam shakes his head and laughs.

"You are just too perfect, aren't you?" He kisses Kris' nose and leaves him bundled in the hoody while Adam goes to talk recording and time-tables with Darryl. Darryl has a whole long timetable that's counting down to Adam's first ever album. The band need some time to learn the songs and Darryl tells Adam to take the next few days off. "Enjoy it while you can," he warns, half-joking and half-deadly-serious. "Once the band are up to speed, we need to start recording."

"Will do," Adam waves at the guys and ducks back out.

Getting Kris out of the building turns out to be easy, the security guards don't even look at a singer leaving with a hoody tucked under his arm. Adam puts Kris in the passenger seat and drives them home. He waits until they're safely home and Brad is pestering him for details before he starts the victory dance. Kris comes prancing over to join in and Adam waltzes Brad around the coffee table, laughing like a madman.

The next three months go past in a blur of confusing and terrifying amounts of work. Adam gets his tattoo, courtesy of Scarlett's latest boyfriend who is a genius with a needle and who only stares a little when Kris jumps up onto the chair to watch him at work. Adam's new tattoo, just over the heart, comes out a little glittery but it heals clean and neat and Adam loves it.

Disturbingly, so does Lanie. As the album starts to come together in the studio after so many sessions that Adam dreams of gray walls and the dull-metal gleam of the mike, work starts on the publicity. Adam's 'unicorn fetish' has been adopted gleefully by the PR department and Brad tells him that SUN has doubled their donations since the publicity cycle started.

Adam has only done a few local interviews, a couple of radio stations and a paragraph interview in the back pages of one of the papers but Lanie is already planning big. Adam tells Brad one night that he thinks Lanie's planning for world domination. He's a little freaked quite frankly. Brad thinks about it for a minute then shrugs. "Good. You should probably give her a per-country bonus or something."

Adam throws a cushion at him and accidentally hits Kris who squeaks and goes to hide behind Tommy. When exactly his band started being part of his social circle, Adam doesn't quite remember but most of the days Adam comes home to find Monte and Cassidy talking color schemes or LP and Alisan meditating or Tommy and Brad arguing. Brad and Tommy disagree on everything but like each other enough that it doesn't seem to matter. Scarlett has installed a white board to keep score in the 'EPIC BITCH OFF!!!'

Brad's winning but Tommy keeps coming back. Adam's bass guitarist is fierce. Adam approves of this. Tommy might be a little jealous of Kris, spending as much time as he can hanging out with them and Kris can usually be found in his lap if Adam is too busy or stuck in a publicity meeting.

Kris goes just about everywhere with Adam. Adam no longer owns clothes that do not work with a coat of glitter. Kris has learned how to be sneaky. Adam has not died of a heart attack, much to his surprise. Kris rides to the studio with Adam and they sing along to the radio. Adam packs a family-sized lunch box and eats maybe a tenth of the stuff in it, all of which is bought from the local organic market. Lanie probably thinks Adam's bulimic if the leaflets she keeps leaving around the place are any indication.

Kris still mostly hums or chirrups but someone (Adam suspects Alisan) has taught him how to whistle and he makes odd little grunting sounds when he's cross or someone steals his blanket. Adam knows that last one from experience. He has to change his sheets every three days or the glitter clogs the washing machine and Adam has to pay for the service engineer to come out.

Kris eats probably his own body-weight in food every two days and probably the same amount of Martina's BBQ sauce in a week. Kris will eat almost anything that has been covered in BBQ sauce. Adam's balcony garden is rapidly becoming a jungle and Adam has started to sell some of the more enthusiastic plants, just to make room.

Kris also drags Adam out for walks in the park which is still overgrown but starting to attract botanists from the local university when Adam gets worked up over the latest drama in the studio. He sleeps cuddled up to Adam's side and he fetches Adam's make-up. He's even learned how to tell different colors of nail polish apart and always turns up exactly what Adam wants.

Adam loves Kris. This isn't a problem. Adam's band loves Kris. That might be a problem.

Tommy is the most obvious about it. He's always touching Kris, brushing his fingers against Kris' coat or his mane and tapping Kris' horn. He keeps hazelnuts and honey-dipped cocoa beans in his pockets and he's probably Kris' non-Adam next-of-kin at this point. He even bought some horse-grooming brushes and brushes Kris down every day.

Even LP and Monte love Kris though. LP is teaching Kris about tempo, beats to the bar and weird tribal beats that Kris taps out with his hooves while LP claps. Monte talks to Kris, easy open conversations that cover politics, tabloids and films. Monte is the one who modifies a set of headphones for Kris so he can listen to Adam's iPod when they have to leave him alone in the office or at home. It halves Adam's repair bill overnight and starts this weird competition among Adam's friends to modify everything so Kris can use it.

Weird levers made out of sticky tape and wire get taped to all the light switches and gears pop up on the taps. Brad even brings in a wooden step so Kris can reach the counter. Adam threatens to make Brad pay for all the fruit and sweets Kris promptly steals from the fruit bowl and the step is quietly relocated to the bathroom. Caroline who is studying to be an engineer, which Adam hadn't known about even after nearly three years of weekly meetings, succeeds in modding Adam's Wii so Kris can play Just Dance and Mario Kart.

(Two days later, XBox announces the Kinect and Caroline drinks all of Adam's good booze in one epic binge.)

Adam feels distinctly unloved or would, if he had time to feel anything but exhausted.

There just isn't time though: not to worry about the way Tommy clings to Kris or the way that Kris lets him or how broke Adam is going to be when he has to buy groceries on a plain old musical salary or if he's ever going to be able to de-glitter his apartment enough to get his security deposit back.

Adam sings until his voice cracks and he can barely speak and he listens to every single song on endless loop while Darryl fiddles with levels and arrangements. First, it's awesome to hear his song even if Adam winces a little the first time he hears his voice and thinks up a hundred different things that he'd like to change. Then Adam starts to hate the endless, constant repeat and hates everything about the song. He doesn't like the way it is and he doesn't like the changes and he mostly never wants to hear the songs ever again. After a while, he stops hating the songs and starts singing them absently to himself while he jogs around the park, trying not to step on Kris as he zooms past and in the shower and when he's drowsing in bed on a rare late morning.

The songs stop being objectively good or bad and it becomes more about the performance than the song. Adam can sing the song badly or he can sing it well but that doesn't reflect how he feels about the song.

Darryl grins at him when Adam sings 'Strut' for the billion and second time and when Adam pulls off his headphones, Darryl leans into the microphone and says "And that, ladies, gentlemen and queens of all ages, that's a wrap!"

Adam stares at him then whoops like a kid and punches the air. Lanie is hovering behind Darryl, Blackberry in hand and Adam's going to have to deal with the launch and publicity but fuck it, he has an _album_. Sink or swim, no-one gets to take this moment away.

He doesn't even hear half of what Lanie tries to tell him, just floats through the whole meeting. Adam vaguely hopes that he didn't sign anything he's going to regret but there is joy bubbling up through his chest and Adam wants to dance and drink every cocktail in the city and fuck a hundred pretty boys and fly! He has an album! He's going to be a _rockstar_!

He dances out to his car, Kris bundled up in his jacket and chirruping. Kris clearly doesn't understand why Adam's happy but is totally willing to go with it. Adam must have texted someone because there's a party in his apartment. The band and Brad and Alisan and Scarlett and so many other people who love him and are proud of him that Kris disappears in the tangle of legs crowd up around him and cheer and clap him on the back until Adam feels bruised.

They drink and laugh and Brad drinks so many glasses of port that he actually cries on Adam's shoulder and tells him that he's always known Adam was going to be huge. The way he manages to trip over his own shadow when he goes for a refill detracts from the moment a little but Adam is still touched.

It's Adam's last party as a free man, the last time he'll be able to just have his friends over and not have to worry that there's a photographer across the road or something. Adam doesn't realize that for a long time.

He gets woken by his phone at six thirty the next morning. Adam manages to hit the right button on the third try. "'lo?"

"Adam, baby, so glad to hear you," some strange woman's voice coos. "So sorry to bother you but we're getting ready for a brainstorming session and it'd be _awesome_ if you could be here in say, ten minutes."

Adam very deliberately does not say the first five things he thinks, mumbles something vaguely agreeable and falls out of bed, dropping the phone. He showers at light speed and puts on only the most essential make-up and opens the bathroom door to discover Kris is still in bed, yawning and rolling around in a half-hearted attempt to get out from his blanket.

Even Kris isn't a morning person this early and Adam scruffles his mane. Kris yawns so wide that Adam can see all the way down to the end of his tail and he laughs.

"I think you need a little more beauty sleep, hon," Kris grunts unhappily and pokes Adam with his horn. "Ow! Stoppit!"

Kris pokes him a few more times but he's clearly exhausted. Kris doesn't do well in crowds and Adam feels obscurely guilty. He pats Kris' shoulder and stands up. Kris has to wobble like a teeter-totter just to get upright and Adam has to catch him before he falls off the bed.

"It's just a few meetings," Adam says, like he isn't carrying Kris out into the living room and Kris sighs heavily. Adam looks around and spots Tommy's eyes peering at him under the tangle of his blond hair from the couch. "You stay with Tommy, okay?"

Before Kris or Tommy can react, Adam drops Kris neatly into Tommy's lap. Tommy automatically brings his arms up to steady Kris, blinking fuzzily at Adam. Adam smiles and flicks the blanket off the back of the couch to cover them both.

"Be good," Adam says and kisses Kris' forehead before he has to run. Traffic around the studio is a nightmare even at ridiculous in the morning.

The meeting lasts all of nine hours and Adam is seriously contemplating suicide-by-white-board-marker when the suits agree that the meeting has been 'productive' and break it up. Adam has a whole note-pad of notes and less than no idea what the hell the meeting was for. It's becoming something of a habit and Adam will probably care about it later.

Right now, Adam is going home, pouring himself at least one stiff drink and cuddling with his unicorn until he's forgotten ever even knowing words like 'synergy' and 'optimum (media) exposure' and the soul-crushing debate that is 'image' and the many many ways Adam doesn't fit. The whole drive home is full of asshole drivers and every radio station is playing songs about broken hearts and shattered dreams. Adam sighs and turns the radio off as he pulls into the parking space.

Kris doesn't come running out to meet him. Adam looks around, the post-party wreckage has been mostly tidied away and there are fresh apples, red and sweet, in the fruit bowl in the hall. There's the smell of something baking coming from the kitchen and Adam's stomach growls.

He's expecting it to be his mom maybe, or one of Cassidy's designers. Most of Adam's circle only 'cook' in microwaves. He's not expecting it to be Tommy who is even wearing the 'ALPHA MALE!' apron Scarlett bought him as a joke back when Adam was in _Wicked_. Tommy doesn't notice Adam looming up in the doorway as he talks to Kris who is up on his hind legs, sniffing hopefully at the bowl.

"My mom always used to let me lick the bowl," Tommy says as he scrapes batter off a wooden spoon that Adam doesn't think he's ever used. "You're not supposed to. The raw eggs might make you sick. I don't know if I should let you. Do unicorns even eat eggs?"

"If they come in a cake, I think Kris'd eat chilli peppers," Adam says dryly and Tommy jumps. Kris drops back onto all fours and bounces over to bump against Adam's hip, sniffing at him like he can smell the stale air of the office still clinging to Adam's clothes. "Not that I think you need to put that to the test. How did I not know you baked?"

"I-" Tommy shrugs, cheeks pink and starts scraping at the bowl. "I don't do it much."

"Why not?" Adam asks. Kris clatters back across the floor to dance around Tommy as he tries to turn to put the bowl in the sink and paws at Tommy's leg, chirruping again. "You might as well give him that."

Tommy hands over the bowl and Kris dives in. Adam pats Kris' shoulder as the bowl gets nudged across the kitchen floor by over-enthusiastic licking. Tommy smiles down at Kris and Adam moves to start clearing up the spatulas and whisks covering the counter.

"I took Home Ec," Tommy says suddenly as Adam starts running water into the sink. "Back in middle school. Loads of guys talked about it, how there would be all these girls and they'd get so many girlfriends. One of my friends Bobby, he had this older brother who used to give us advice about how to score a girl. Most of it was bullshit but he always said the best move he ever made was learning how to cook. Chicks dig guys who know how to cook. It sounded like a cool idea but I was the only dumbass who actually did it."

Tommy's tone is aggressively casual and Adam thinks long and hard before he opens his mouth. "Guy I worked with back in the music hall days, he used to call guys like that 'all mouth and no trousers'."

Tommy laughs and snags a clean dish towel from the top drawer. Adam smiles back. "Seriously? Those guys were assholes. You learned to make pie-"

"Muffins, actually," Tommy corrects and Adam flicks suds at him.

"Not the point," Adam rolls his eyes. "You learned to make baked goods! On demand! That is never going to be anything less than awesome. If I want muffins, I have to haul my ass out of the apartment and go find a bakery, you just _make_ one."

Tommy's grinning now, cheeks still a little pink. "You know it doesn't actually work like that, right? I don't just snap my fingers or anything."

"I burn water," Adam says dismissively. "Cooking is a bizarre alchemical mystery that I watch with awe from a distance."

"You're kinda weird," Tommy says, smiling a little shyly. "Good weird but still kinda weird."

Adam raises an eyebrow at him and is on the verge of a blistering retort when Kris starts chirruping sadly. Adam turns to see Kris pawing at the fridge. He and Tommy lean forward together to peer at him. Kris paws the fridge a little harder, making it rock back and forth and it's only then that Adam realizes he can't see the bowl. He turns and Tommy's jaw is hanging open in shock.

"Uh," Adam stares some more. "Did you see-?"

"Where's the bowl gone?" Tommy asks, looking around like Adam stuffed it down his pants or something. There's a gleam of stainless steel just visible as the fridge rocks a little.

"Under the fridge, I think," Adam says. "And no, I have no idea how he managed it."

Tommy stares at the fridge, then back at Kris. "Well, I'm not going looking for it under there!"

Kris chirrups mournfully and Adam leans into Tommy. "How long until those muffins are ready?"

"About ten minutes," Tommy says, still staring at Kris. Adam spares a moment to fondly remember when he was that astonished by the utter mayhem Kris can wreak without ever intending to. Then he hands Tommy the big bunch of grapes. "Try to space them out, remember, you're looking to fill ten whole minutes here."

"Whu-I-?" Tommy stammers and Adam flashes his rockstar smile.

"I gotta grab a shower but I'll be right back down. Shouldn't be more than ten minutes but save me a muffin if I'm not back?"

"I!-You-!" Tommy manages but Adam is already safely inside the bathroom.

Later, after Tommy has stopped staring reproachfully at Adam every five seconds, they take what's left of the muffins and camp out on the couch. _Homeward Bound_ is showing on one of the basic channels and Kris sprawls out across both their laps in a muffin-induced coma, humming contentedly.

"Do you think Kris has a home?" Tommy asks suddenly. "Like a family or a blessing or something somewhere?"

Adam looks away from the TV but Tommy looks serious, petting Kris with a frown. "I don't know. I don't think so."

"But what if he does?" Tommy pushes. "What if someday Kris wants to go home."

 _This is his home,_ Adam almost shouts back but Tommy doesn't seem to be teasing him. "Then, I guess, if it was safe and I could help...I guess, I'd make sure he got there."

Tommy doesn't look happy but he nods and Adam might cuddle Kris a little closer while they watch Chance and Shadow and Sassy struggle to make it back across the wilds of untamed America. He hasn't really thought about Kris' home or his family since those first few days, Kris just seemed to belong in the middle of Adam's life. Adam feels a twinge of guilt when he realizes that he hasn't even looked for a blessing Kris might have wandered away from.

He promises himself that he's going to start looking first thing the next morning.

He's forgotten that his first ever single drops in one week and Lanie and the studio want him to work every media event and interview they can cram into his days. Adam starts to feel like a robot stuck on an endlessly loop and his plastic PR smile starts to feel like it's carved into his face. Adam talks up SUN, helped by one of Brad's awesome fact-sheets and Lanie tells him the high-ups are loving the polish it's giving his image.

"Gay, fun, hot and a champion of good causes," she gushes during one of Adam's brief breaks between interviews. "The public are loving you."

It's not the whole truth. Adam's generating a lot of interest in the younger demographic but there are a lot of religious activists and campaigners that are using him as the poster boy for their anti-gay campaigns. Adam hates it; hates every single poisonous press release and statement and hates that he's The Gay Artist. He isn't hiding or denying anything but he's so fucking tired of his sexuality being the only thing people are talking about.

He honestly thinks he'd go insane if it wasn't for Kris. Kris is waiting at the door (which is starting to develop a Kris-shaped dent but what the hell, Adam kissed his security deposit goodbye months ago). Kris doesn't knock him down but he's openly and obviously ecstatic to see Adam. He doesn't demand so many walks but he'll hop into Adam's lap if Adam sits down for more than a second.

Adam's first single drops on Friday. Saturday morning everyone in Adam's contact list tries to ring him at once. _For Your Entertainment_ hits #1 and stays there for three days and Adam is so giddy he feels like he's hyperventilating. His song is a number one single and it stays in the top 3 for the rest of the month which is fabulous and Adam doesn't need Lanie's gleeful dancing to tell him that's so much better than the label were expecting.

He gets to perform the single live and he panics about everything. Brad has to come with them, half to help Adam with his makeup because shaking hands and eyeliners are a bad combination and half to babysit Kris who is smuggled in with the instruments. Kris bounces around the dressing room and everyone and everything gets covered in glitter again. The whole band give Kris good-luck cuddles and Adam presses a kiss against his forehead which leaves golden glitter in his lip gloss.

He barely remembers the performance, just the cheers and the applause and the way the audience stamped their feet and clapped their hands. He kisses Tommy in there somewhere and that's awesome. A few months ago, kissing Tommy would have gotten Adam punched in the face. Today, when Adam takes his bow, Tommy is comfortably tucked under one arm, relaxed and casual. Adam sits with the host, answers a few of the usual questions and practically skips back to the dressing room where they have a group hug and everyone is laughing and crying and hanging onto each other.

Adam watches the repeat the next day and they look fabulous and fierce and he doesn't sound nearly as hysterically happy as he thought he would. It's a good performance and Twitter and Facebook are lighting up with links and copies of everything Adam-related. He's the top trending artist on Twitter and he goes to a meeting full of suits who are practically purring with satisfaction over his numbers.

Adam basks in the good vibes right up until one of the suits says "World-wide tour."

"Wait, what?" Adam stammers but the suits are already nodding eagerly.

"Japan will love him," one of the female suits gloats.

"Malaysia, if he tones down the stage show?"

"Europe?" The suits spread out maps like they're planning the next world war and Adam is left looking back and forth as they throw out country names that sound like they're making them up. Adam recognizes one in maybe twenty of the suggestions and he writes down as many of them as he can.

He finally gets to go home and calls an emergency meeting. The entirety of SUN and his band crowd obligingly into Adam's living room while Adam paces up and down in the one square foot of floorspace left. Kris is sprawled across Tommy's lap (and Monte's because Tommy is an itty bitty beanpole) with his chin on Brad's knee.

"What are we going to do?" Adam demands after filling everyone in.

"Pack?" Monte suggests.

"Get a new passport?" Tommy offers.

"Start making lists of souvenirs and booze we want you bring back?" Danielle says.

"What are we going to do about _Kris_?" Adam interrupts before Brad can open his mouth. "We're going to be flying all over the world. How are we going to hide him?"

"You could always leave hi-" Adam and the whole band glare at Cassidy who holds up his hands. "All right, no offense. So Kris is coming with you, at least these guys know, right?"

"But Adam's right," Monte points out. "We need someone to keep an eye on Kris while we're on stage and signing."

"Can't you tell your agent?" Scarlett asks after Adam panics a bit more. "She's the one who's booking the hotels and the tickets, right?"

"Lanie is..." Adam tries to think of what to say but of course, Brad's in before he can get a whole sentence together.

"Awesome," he says firmly. "She's rooting for you and she gets to climb the rat race faster if your star rises and you know what, I'm going to let that metaphor die right there. My point is that she's _your_ assistant. She's not going to screw you over because she'd lose her job and her reputation if she did. Besides, would you turn in that face?"

Brad points to Kris who is staring wistfully at Caroline's smoothie with big brown eyes and Adam can't really argue with that. "Okay, fine. I'll call her."

It's decided, although not by Adam, that there shouldn't be so many people and most of Adam's unicorn-babysitting circle head out to Martina's diner. Adam is left with Brad, the band and Kris who pouts outrageously over not being allowed to go to the diner. Adam calls Lanie and has to wait nearly five minutes before he can get a word in edge-ways and invite her over.

"Sure, I'll bring the latest plans and we can start talking vaccinations and tour buses," Lanie gushes. "See you in ten!"

Adam spends the next ten minutes throwing things at his band to make them stop giggling and begging Kris to behave himself. "This is really, really important, babe. I need you to be on your best behavior. Please, Kris."

Kris chirrups and nods and he's sitting beside Adam when he hears Lanie's knock.

"Stay here," Adam says and goes to answer the door.

"Adam," Lanie grabs him in for a hug and exuberant air-kisses. "You're officially the most pre-ordered album this year! Congratulations!"

"That's-that's awesome," Adam manages. "Listen, I really need your help."

"Oh god," Lanie drops her bag and pulls out her iPhone. "Ex, sex-tape, drugs or felony?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What have you done?" Lanie demands with a world-weary sigh. "And how much is it going to cost to make it go away?"

"It's not so much what I've done," Adam hedges, wondering a little about the speed with which Lanie jumped on potential scandal. "It's kinda complicated but I have someone who I want you to meet first."

"Okay," Lanie sighs and keeps hold of her phone.

"Kris?" Adam calls and there's an immediate clatter of hooves. Lanie's eyebrows shoot up and her eyes almost pop out of their sockets when Kris comes trotting out into the hall. Adam has to jump to catch her as she staggers back in shock.

Kris freezes in place and looks up at Adam, chirruping worriedly as Adam steadies Lanie.

"It's okay, baby," Adam says reassuringly. "She wasn't expecting it, that's all."

"I-you-WHAT THE FUCK!?!" Lanie nearly screams and Adam shushes her. "What the fuck, Adam!?"

Kris edges a little closer, still looking to Adam for support and holds up a tentative hoof to Lanie. She tries to stay furious, Adam can actually see it in her face but Kris makes a shy 'chiirrrrr' sound and Lanie cracks like cheap pancake foundation. She glares a little at Tommy and Monte who are peering out from the living room but Kris' cute will not be denied.

"Hey, honey-child," she coos, shaking Kris' hoof and beaming when Kris chirrups hopefully at her. "Aren't you just the most adorable little baby unicorn? Aren't you?" Adam lets her to dote over Kris for a few minutes before she straightens up and looks at him. "Why on earth did you call him 'Kris'?"

"It's his name," Adam shrugs.

"How do you know that?"

"He told me," Adam turns to Kris. "Can you tell Lanie your name?"

Kris writes his name in golden letters and draws an arrow that trails off from the bottom curve of the 's' to point to himself. Lanie stares at him and Adam is certain she's going to sprain her eyes if she keeps doing that.

"Hey Kris," Lanie manages eventually. "I'm Lanie. Lay-nee."

Kris blinks at her for a second then, tiny pink tongue poked out in concentration, writes "L-A-N-E-E" in golden letters and Lanie laughs.

"That should be an 'I'," Lanie points at the first 'e'. "But that was really close. Who's that?"

She's pointing at Brad who opens his mouth but Kris is already writing over the fading letters of Lanie's name. "CHEEKS" pops up in confident gold blocky letters.

Adam gapes, Brad laughs and Kris adds "Brad" in smaller letters. Lanie giggles and shakes Brad's hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Cheeks."

"Charmed," Brad says casually. "Always nice to meet someone who can manage Adam's neurotic ass."

Tommy is coaxing Kris back into the living room with the blackcurrant and jam muffins that Monte picked up and Lanie trails along behind him. Adam comes too, only mostly because Tommy spoils Kris and will give him too many muffins and who is going to have deal with pitiful chirruping and buying up the entire shelf of indigestion remedies? Adam, that's who.

Lanie watches Kris dancing around on his hind legs while Monte and Tommy toss his muffin back and forth. Adam would break it up but Kris is _sneaky_ like _ninja_ and capable of an incredible burst of speed when food is at stake. He lets them toss it back and forth once, twice-...and catches it midair in a standing leap that nearly leaves a horn-mark on the ceiling. Then Kris comes prancing back to Adam with the muffin held delicately in his mouth and his tail held high.

Adam breaks a little bit of the muffin off for himself and Kris settles down to devour the rest of his muffin while Tommy and Monte laugh and Brad reaches down to pet Kris's back. Lanie is staring at them, eyes wide with wonder. She actually seems physically incapable of looking away from Kris.

It's pretty much the typical reaction for someone's first encounter with a unicorn, so even Brad pulls in the claws for the moment and lets Lanie stare. Lanie talks to Kris like he's a puppy or something. The writing seems to be what she's fixated on and she points at different things and asks Kris to name them. The fun starts when she points at Monte. "Who's that, sweetie, who's that?"

"MONTE, MUFFIN-MAN," Kris writes. "AXMAN."

"Muffin-man?" Monte sputters and Tommy and LP crack up, falling into each other and laughing like lunatics. "Assholes!"

"What about him," Lanie is laughing a little but she's pointing at Tommy now and Kris leans out to peer at Tommy.

"TOMMY, TOMMY-LEE, GLITTERBABY," Kris writes. "SHOW-TEASE."

"Tease?" Brad cackles. "Told you he understood the smoochies."

"It was only one show," Adam protests. He hasn't really thought about it because, sure, Tommy's cute but he's like Adam's kid brother most of the time and it was different on stage, all charged and wild. "And it could be worse."

"How?" Tommy demands.

"He could call you rent-boy?" Brad offers and Tommy shrieks and throws cushions at him while Monte yells indiscriminate encouragement.

Lanie shakes her head and grins at them. Adam winces a little when Tommy gets Brad in the face with the linen cushion with the scratchy embroidery and Brad shrieks like a banshee. Monte has to get involved then, holding Brad back long enough to give Tommy a head start and they're off, Monte chasing Brad who is chasing Tommy around the couch. Brad is running through some of his serious threats. Kris watches them, totally cool and calm, then licks the crumbs off his coat.

Lanie is watching them sidelong even as she and Adam talk about the tour and effects budgets. He so used to the madhouse that he doesn't actually realize why she's so distracted until Tommy slips on the bald patch of carpet and she tenses. He'd already tuned the yelling out automatically (and how sad is it that Adam doesn't even bat an eye at this sort of thing any more?) His life is weird. After Brad nearly knocks over the coffee table, Adam raises his voice. "Guys, guys! Knock it off!"

Brad and Tommy snipe at each other at little more but the fight peters out and Monte is still laughing at them all when he drops back onto the couch and sprawls outrageously. Tommy and Brad have to sit on opposite arms and they bury their differences to bitch at Monte. Adam rolls his eyes and threatens to change the locks after they're gone for the fifteenth time that week. Tommy flips him off and Brad sticks out his tongue as far as he can. Lanie leans down to Kris and points at Adam. "Who's that, Kris? Who's that?"

Kris blinks sleepily up at her from where he's leaning into Adam's leg. Kris follows her finger and looks up at Adam. He draws a big lopsided heart that's bigger than he is with a flourish that trails off into an arrow pointed at Adam. It hangs in the air for a second before dissolving slowly into golden sparkles.

"Oh," Lanie says softly. Adam ducks his head to kiss Kris' forehead and scruffle his mane. Kris chirrups and bumps his nose against Adam's cheek before yawning in his face. Adam barely winces as Kris shifts around to find the perfect position and his hooves leave grooves in Adam's boots. It's not a big deal. Adam's rapidly becoming a master at buffing leather back into shape.

"Look," she says softly, petting the curve of Kris' neck. "I can't...can't promise anything, okay? This is...huge. A real-life unicorn isn't like a drugs problem or a fucked-up ex. There isn't anything in the training about unicorns so I'm going to be fucking winging it, you understand?"

"I get it," Adam says and Lanie sighs, smiling a little.

"But I'll try, okay?"

"Okay," Adam smiles and Kris shifts a little, tucking his head behind Adam's leg. "That's totally okay."

Lanie turns out to be a _ninja_.

Adam finds this out in the last mad media blitz before the album drops. She has skills bordering on the supernatural when it comes to sneaking Kris past security and press and a sixth sense for when Adam needs remedial Kris-time. Her specialty, which Adam appreciates more every day, is getting him five minutes to hug Kris before answering yet another barrage of questions about how his sexuality defines everything about him. The label is swinging the full weight of the media machine behind him as his album release looms which means Adam is sleeping in the studio, in snatched moments on couches that are barely softer than the floor.

Kris' portable-furnace tendencies turn out to be a godsend because everywhere in LA has air-conditioning and is kept at a temperature approximately five degrees above absolute zero. Adam sleeps best curled around Kris even if Tommy and Lanie have to brush him down with a stiff brush to get the fresh layer of glitter off his clothes before he can be shoved out in front of the cameras again.

It's exhausting, even for a natural extrovert like Adam. _For Your Entertainment_ drops out of the top three on the singles chart after three weeks but is still selling well so after one panicked meeting, the suits announce that it's still looking good and they're optimistic for the album.

"They're jerks," Adam tells Kris sincerely. "But they're right. I hope."

Kris nudges at Adam's arm so he can rest his cheek against Adam's heart (and get a truly ridiculous amount of glitter on his new jacket). It's his favorite position lately and Adam would object. Really, he would, for the sake of the dry-cleaning bill if nothing else but it also puts Kris in a perfect position for Adam to hug him and hang onto him. Having the first amazing, fantastic thing to happen in his life right there where Adam can feel his heart beating and listen to him chirruping excitedly makes it easier to believe he might get a second.

The album hits the stores across the country (and the all important iTunes launch) on a Friday. Adam is sitting in a conference room in the studio from 6 am with the band and every friend and family member he can get past security. His mom is feeding Kris cranberries because she thinks that they're better for him than strawberries. Adam lost the will to live somewhere around the sixth iteration of 'anti-oxidants' and 'immune disorders' and has no idea what his mom's overall scheme is.

Adam paces between cups of coffee while Lanie tries desperately to sort out what exactly the numbers are and how good they are. Most of the suits aren't in house today but Adam already has four conference calls scheduled and he's crawling out of his fucking skin by this point.

At ten in the morning, Lanie appears and flashes two thumbs up. Alisan is playing some arcane form of table tennis with LP and some wadded up paper. By eleven Lanie's looking a little more worried. Adam learns that hitting Brad in the head earns Alisan or LP eighty points. Twelve in the afternoon, Lanie swings in the door, breathless and sweaty to announce. "Five-thousand sold so far. What do you want for lunch?"

Adam wants bagels. Actually, Adam wants chocolate cake and champagne but the only thing that sells cake in a five block radius is Wall-mart and Adam doesn't want Kris to die of artificial colors. Lanie takes down everyone's orders, reminds Adam that he's got a conference call in an hour and zooms out the door.

Tommy has discovered a laser pointer and is testing to see if Kris will chase it. Scarlett rolls her eyes. "He's a herbivore. Herbivores don't hunt prey so they don't have a stalking instinct!"

Adam, and everyone who's ever tried to eat anything with chocolate or honey while occupying the same apartment as Kris, begs to differ. Kris noses along the wall behind the little red dot and whuffs thoughtfully. He turns his head to rub his horn against his side and it's glowing when he straightens up.

"Um!" Tommy manages.

"Uh-" Alisan stutters.

"What the fuck?!" Adam starts before Kris tosses his head and the area around the little red dot fills with rainbow-colored light. They all stare at it and Tommy nearly drops the pointer. The little red dot bounces across the wall, followed by the globe of rainbow light which sparkles as it moves.

Adam stares at it some more but Tommy is starting to giggle. "UNICORN DISCO BALL!"

Oh dear _god_ , Adam thinks but Brad is starting to smirk in that tangled up convoluted way that means he's trying not to laugh his bony little ass off. Tommy flicks the pointer up and down and it looks like the disco ball effect is bouncing. Scarlett claps her hands and Alisan is laughing so hard she has to hang off the desk to keep from falling over.

They plug someone's iPod into the speakers and tune in some awful disco/techno music and prance around the room, because Adam's life wasn't surreal enough. Oh no, he needs a unicorn disco ball and a pack of howling, uncoordinated hyenas that pretend to be his friends. Lanie comes back with lunch, looks at them with her head tilted all the way over to one side and shakes her head.

"You guys," she says, rolling her eyes as she opens the brown paper bags and hands out food. "You guys are _weird_."

Adam grabs his bagel and a soda and retreats to the desk to sulk. He's jittery nervous, even with fifty thousand copies sold. Fifty thousand is an insane number, Adam doesn't think he's ever seen fifty thousand of anything in one place and he can't really conceptualize it. He can't even remember if fifty thousand is a good number or if the suits expected more.

Kris comes over to lean his chin on Adam's knee and sigh wistfully in the direction of the corner of bagel Adam hasn't eaten. Adam musses up his mane and Kris lets him then shakes vigorously the second Adam moves his hand and Adam laughs. Kris winds up with this ridiculous floppy fringe that makes him look like an emo unicorn and Adam laughs harder.

"What's so funny?" Monte demands, bouncing over to see for himself and cracking up when Adam points at Kris. "Oh god, sweetheart, no! That is so not a good look for you!"

"Who died and made you fashion god?" Brad sniffs, rolling his eyes at Monte's loose washed-out black t-shirt before turning to Kris. "Oh. My. God! ADAM!"

"What?" Adam protests.

"You can't let the poor baby go out like that!" Brad kneels beside Kris, running his fingers through Kris' mane. "Glitterbug, grab my bag."

"Glitterbug?" Tommy objects but Brad snaps his fingers imperiously and he hauls over Brad's man-purse which is practically half the size of Brad. Brad sorts through his hair accessories and looks around. "I need an outlet. And some water in a bowl."

They have to move the desk and unplug one of the computers to find an outlet. Brad immediately plugs in his flat iron and starts laying out various types of gel and mousse, talking to Kris like a pro-hairdresser as he does. "You've got really fine, soft hair and it feels gorgeous but you are going to feel so flat if you don't take precautions against the humidity. I have some volumizer but I'm not sure how much size you want, are we talking mohawk? Fauxhawk? Punk skinhead?"

Kris peers at him and draws question marks in the air and Brad sighs, shooting Adam an annoyed glance. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I forget that your mean room-mate hasn't popped your salon cherry."

Kris isn't the only one with wide eyes at that particular metaphor and Adam coughs self-consciously at the considering look in his mom's eyes. His mom thinks Brad is just precious and spent most of their relationship convinced Adam was the corrupting influence. Adam foresees a long and very awkward conversation ahead but his phone rings for the conference call just in time.

Adam manages to take all four conference calls in a mature, professional tone that seems to be scoring him serious brownie points with Simon Fuller himself. He doesn't say anything stupid or accidentally disconnect the call and he does all of this while watching his best friend cut and style his baby unicorn's mane and tail.

Brad cuts Kris' mane short enough that a light touch of gel makes it stand up in this little crest that makes Kris look like the fiercest, most adorable wild unicorn imaginable. Kris' tail-bobble is trimmed and tidied up and Brad paints in a streak of temporary dye in a fiery red that Kris seems to really like. He chases his tail around the room, trying to get a better look and Brad starts talking about shoes and hoof-polish.

Adam takes his last call as Cassidy and Brad are discussing scarves and coats. He hangs up and turns to the people he loves most and holds out his arms with the biggest, happiest smile ever. "That was Cindy from Sales. The album just went gold!"

Everyone cheers and whoops and claps him on the back. Kris destroys Brad's work, bumping his head against Adam's leg and demanding scritches. Lanie pops up like a champagne ninja and Adam pops the cork and they drink bubbly champagne from plastic disposable cups and Adam smiles so hard that his face aches.

Kris manages to drink some champagne and he turns out to be a total lightweight. Literally. Adam isn't sure if it's the bubbles or the alcohol but Kris starts to drift a few inches off the floor and his horn leaves a little trail of rainbow-hued bubbles. Adam threatens to tie a piece of string to his tail and float him out disguised as a novelty balloon.

Then, Kris starts to hiccup. He does this weird little double hic then a gulp and he looks alarmed as the hiccups keep coming and everyone tries to figure out how to cure them.

It's a joke at first, running through all the old wives' tales about hiccup cures. It stops being funny when _none_ of them _work_. Giving Kris sugar makes things worse because he just hiccups faster. Monte nearly gets skewered in a delicate area when he jumps out at Kris to startle him. Drinking from the far side of the glass is a concept that Kris just does not understand. Brad makes him hold his breath and Kris nearly passes out from the effort. Finally Adam sits down on the ground beside him and rubs his back. Kris hiccups loudly and his tail droops.

"It's okay, baby," Adam soothes. "You just have to hang in there a little longer. It'll go away eventually."

Kris hides his head in Adam's armpit and Adam decides that it's time to take him home. He lets Tommy take Kris, bundled up in his jacket while Adam stops off to check about meetings on Monday. There are more tour dates being added every minute and he's going to have to start seriously planning the whole show from sets to costumes to makeup before next week.

When he gets outside, there are cameramen waiting. There's only three of them and none with the flat, greedy stare of the professional asshole. They still scare the shit out of him when their flashes go off and Adam is deathly certain later that if he'd been the one carrying Kris, he would have dropped him.

Thankfully, Tommy and Kris are long gone in Brad's car and all the paparazzi get is Adam with a stupid amount of glitter on his every-day clothes which is going to start popping up everywhere. Adam hurries past them, ignoring the flashing lights and the shouted questions in favor of fishing out his car keys and tossing them to Lanie. The camera-men try to crowd the car but Lanie's been driving in LA for years and a car in her hands is a very, very scary thing. Adam ducks down in the passenger seat and doesn't make eye contact.

His heart is racing and Adam fumbles for his phone, thumbing 5 on speed-dial and counting the seconds until Tommy picks up.

"We're not being followed," Tommy says immediately. No 'Hello'.

"Are you _sure_?" Adam demands. He can't even begin to think of the shit-storm that would kick off if someone got a photo of Kris.

"Dead sure," Tommy says flatly and Adam can hear Kris' questioning chirrup in the background. "We changed cars. Brad says you owe him for the valet he's going to have to get to de-glitter his car."

"I can do that," Adam says immediately because he can and he's going to. He just sold one hundred thousand records in less than twenty four hours, he can afford to pay back his best friend for saving his ass. "Is Kris okay?"

There's more chirruping as Kris apparently tries to hijack the phone and Tommy fights him off and Adam shakes his head, clutching his phone like an old lady clutching her pearls. "We'll meet you at Martina's, okay? Kris is freaking out and Brad will kill me if he crashes the car."

"Tell him to stop speeding," Adam orders. Brad has a lead foot and some serious unresolved issues with SUVs and LA traffic and Adam only gets a ride with him if he has a blindfold and enough Zanax to drop a bull elephant. "He is not allowed to kill anyone, or crash. Tell him that."

"Okay," Tommy says something muffled and Adam can hear Brad snort dismissively. There's one last worried chirrup and the line goes dead. Lanie cuts off a jerk in an Audi and goes by the longest route Adam can think of back to Martina's. Adam sits in the car, squashed in beside Brad's battered Ford and makes himself count five minutes by the dashboard clock before he gets out and does a high-speed saunter into the diner.

He can hear Kris the second he gets in the door, a high-pitched keening sound that rattles in Adam's ears. It looks like it's taking Tommy, Brad and Martina's best efforts just to keep Kris in the bench on the side of the booth.

"Kris," Adam calls and Kris comes careening across the table to launch himself at Adam like a guided missile. Adam catches him easily and Kris feels like he's made of cobwebs and candy floss, so light that it's almost like he isn't there. Kris is fluffed up like a startled cat and only the very faintest traces of glitter catch the light. "Hey, hey, baby."

Kris snuggles his head in under Adam's jacket and whines softly. He's shaking and Adam pets Kris' coat smooth and keeps talking to him until Kris finally stops shaking. By that point, Adam's knees are protesting the hard floor and he picks Kris up and moves to the booth. Kris keeps his head tucked under Adam's jacket and refuses to come out. Scarlett scoots over to make room for them.

"So," Adam says flatly, still combing his fingers through Kris' coat. "This can't happen again. What do we need to do to make this happen?"

Lanie exchanges wary glances with Brad and Martina. "Well, I'm guessing 'leave him safe at home' still isn't an option?"

Kris bumps his nose against Adam's chest and Adam arches an eloquent eyebrow at Lanie who sighs.

"Fine," she pulls out her phone and starts tapping away at the keys. "We'll need to run two cars back and forth from the studio, some more people who know he exists to keep an eye on him and he can't come to publicity events." Lanie cuts off Adam's protest without looking up. "Non-negotiable. Bringing your unicorn to events that are full of cameras and professional busybodies is just not happening. I can probably get him on tour; you're going to have a private bus anyway and we can unicorn proof it before the tour kicks off. I'll get someone in from Legal to write a NDA that'll bankrupt their great-grandchildren if they go whispering to tabloids."

Tommy pets Kris who chirrups sadly and settles more securely in Adam's lap. "We can watch him while you're doing the publicity thing. We'll work something out, I mean, come on, it's Kris. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Excuse me? Do you know how much of disaster this could be?" Lanie snaps, looking up from her phone. "Unicorn poaching is a felony and that's the least of what you can get thrown at you if the prosecutor decides to turn this into a moral crusade."

Tommy scowls at her and even Brad is looking down his nose at her. "It's _Kris_!"

Lanie sighs and Kris nudges her fingers with the tip of his nose and she sighs again, deeper before putting down her phone and petting him properly. "Guys, seriously. I have a ..friend who works in the Department of Agriculture."

Adam blinks at her. "And that's awesome but-"

"The corn production in 2009 was 13 billion bushels. Do you know what it was last year?" Lanie asks, carrying on after a single glance at their collectively blank expressions. "10.2 billion. He told me that they think this year it's going to be less than 9 Billion bushels and it's getting worse. Soybeans were 3 Billion bushels and change in 2009, they'll be less that half that this year and less than half a billion expected next year. All those statistics you've been parroting at the media, Adam, did you actually think about what they meant?"

"Less than ten percent of the native blessings are left," Adam says woodenly, the familiar talking point coming automatically to his lips. "Unicorns are vital to the natural order and the ecosystem and we need them to make the crops grow."

Lanie sighs again, heavy and bitter and snatches up her phone. "Look, this isn't where I wanted to have this conversation but I know some people up in the State Department and well, you've been shining a fucking spotlight on this issue for months and climbing the charts. You haven't been off the top ten Twitter trends since your first press conference."

She pushes the phone across the table to him and Adam taps at the screen, still not getting what she's talking about. It's a halfway done draft of some legislation that makes Adam's eyes cross. 'The Holbrook Unicorn Nature Territory and Ecology Reserve Act' takes up the whole first page and then there are pages and pages of legalese that make Adam's eyes cross. "Well, congratulations, they're listening."

Alisan is reading over his shoulder and she whistles softly. "Seriously? They're putting unicorn preservation under Homeland Security?"

"And the ATF and the FBI," Lanie nods. "I've even heard that the CIA is sniffing around some of the unicorn blessings in the middle East."

"Ha, some chance," Brad sniffs but he's gone pale and his eyes are wide. "They'd never get a unicorn out of that area. Unicorns are sacred in the Islamic tradition."

"Yeah," Alisan is the one who answers this time. "Because sacred traditions are what the corporations care about."

"Unicorns are political issues now," Lanie says, scruffing Kris' mane apologetically. "You've been so lucky, Adam, I can't even-You've been _lucky_ but that's not going to last forever. You need to start being responsible here, Adam."

"Yeah," Adam agrees. He isn't really expecting the molten red rage that comes bubbling up when he thinks about Kris being taken away. What do Homeland Security know about taking care of unicorns? Will they know that he only eats organic and that processed sugar turns him into a sparkler of golden energy that is impossibly fragile and breathtakingly beautiful? Will they make sure he has plants to pee on and then eat? (Adam is still _certain_ that this isn't sanitary but he hasn't figured out how to make Kris stop.)

He's hugging Kris tightly again, clinging like Homeland security are going to kick the door in any second. Kris is snuggled up tight to him and Adam thinks he gets how people can go on crazy rampages with sticks and stones and fire. _I'll protect you,_ he promises Kris silently. _I won't let them have you._

Martina brings over BBQ sauce in a bowl (for Kris) and some of her home-made lamb meatballs in the spicy sauce that Brad really likes. She also takes one look around the table and comes back with a big bottle of vodka. It takes most of the bottle before the others start to relax, Tommy giggling like the lightweight he is while Brad discusses disguising Kris as a very glamorous wolfhound with a little tartan coat.

Adam doesn't relax but he fakes it well enough that everyone else goes home laughing and chatting. Adam goes home, changes into the ratty sweats he uses to redecorate and the GAP t-shirt that just a little too small for him and takes Kris out for a run. The park isn't safe, there are biologists and climatologists crawling all over it these days. The next nearest park is only just starting to revive the same way so it should be safe.

Adam still sticks to the alleys and keeps away from the street lights. Kris glows a little in the gloom, not enough to be obvious but enough that Adam doesn't step on broken bottles or slip in the trash people left in corners. Kris keeps pace easily, even when Adam's running so hard that his chest aches around each desperate gulp of air. Kris' hooves sound like wind chimes on the concrete and he's probably destroying the manicure/pedicure Brad gave him.

Right now though, Adam needs to run. He runs four laps around the park, Kris keeping up easily before his legs start to wobble under him. He stumbles to a halt beside the fountain and gasps for air. Kris goes straight for the fountain. More accurately, Kris goes straight _into_ the fountain. Adam turns his head in time to see clear water spreading out like a weird reverse ink-stain through the grubby basin.

Kris drinks so much water that his belly pooches out in a big round curve. Adam has to lift him out of the fountain and Kris goes off exploring. Adam sits on the edge of the fountain and catches his breath. He's watching the shadows, the few people - mostly drunks and stoners - who go past and keeping one ear on the sound of Kris rustling happily through the dried-up flower beds.

The fifteen minutes he spends waiting for Kris to come back feel like days and Adam hustles Kris back out of the park and takes a different back-alley route home. When Kris is safely tucked up in bed, Adam paces the apartment, compulsively checking the windows and the four locks on the door. It isn't until he can't keep his eyes open that Adam stumbles back to bed and curls protectively around Kris. Even as he falls headlong into sleep, Adam's straining to make out if that's just the wind rattling his windows or if someone's trying to break in.

He dreams of his mom's back yard in the summer, late evening heat and the dusty sweet smell of fruit and sweat. The light is dappled and the leaves of the trees are lush and green. All the colors seem a little brighter than they should and the whole world is full of music. Adam's slouched in the swing set that never worked in real life, swaying back and forth. He's singing something naggingly familiar and there's someone else there, a solid weight on the seat behind him and if Adam strains just a little harder, he can almost hear-

His alarm goes off like a siren and Kris's horn nearly takes Adam's eye out as they both jerk awake. Adam can't remember the dream properly, just the bright colors, the music and the powerful sense of someone being there, someone important. The harder he tries to remember, the more nebulous the memory becomes until he can't remember any of the details. He leaves Kris with Scarlet and Brad who are talking about hair dye and rainbows.

Adam is a bitch the whole way through his day, snapping at the stupid set designer who thinks Adam's concert stage should be something rustic and ecologically friendly and the wardrobe coordinator who thinks that unprocessed linen is the greatest material on earth and that leather is something that should only go on couches. After two hours of presentation (theirs) and twenty five minutes of shouting (Adam's), Lanie grabs Adam by the elbow and tows him out of the room.

"You-you-Aargh! Go home, cuddle your unicorn or whatever you need to do," she orders after stealing Adam's phone. "Leave this - and them - to me."

Adam thinks about arguing because really, he's just in that sort of a mood but Lanie has her teeth bared in a vicious snarl masquerading as a pleasant smile. Besides, Adam isn't stupid enough to turn down quality Kris-time even when he's not being a diva. Lanie watches him all the way to his car, past the few photographers that are actively camping outside the studio.

Lanie turns out to be not just a ninja but a super-scary ninja general. She handles everything. It works out well because Adam spends the whole holiday season trying to work out how to smuggle Kris down to his mom's. His mom had called him three times a day to confirm he and Kris were coming and Adam is not at all sulking over the fact that the Hanukkah card that arrived two days before they left was addressed to Kris. Adam has to drive down in the middle of the night because Kris is being as stealthy as ever. He insists on riding with his fore-hooves on the dash so he can peer out the window and chirrup excitedly at the passing cars while Adam prays that he doesn't get pulled over. The drive to San Diego is the most scrupulously legal trip in Adam's entire history.

Kris proceeds to establish himself as Leia's favorite guest of all time when her garden begins to look like a slice of rain forest; everything green and vibrant and growing their planty little hearts out. Mrs Vickers next-door is going a matching shade of green and Leia cackles gleefully for _days_.

She has bought Kris an iStore gift card and Neil helps Kris find the music he wants. Kris doesn't know that many names but he's got a ear for a tune and will hum what he remembers while Neil finds the names on YouTube. Adam supervises to be sure Kris doesn't pick up any more bad habits from Neil. Neil calls Adam paranoid but he isn't entirely surprised when Neil's present turns out to be another offensively plaid blanket that Kris loves like he loves strawberries.

Adam sends Lanie the biggest flower arrangement, a box of chocolates the size of Kris and a new iPhone for Christmas.

Adam learns that she's taken on three minions two weeks after they've been hired when one of them arrives to collect him for a meet-the-fans event. Rachel, who is prim from her neat cornrows to the toes of her patent leather shoes, is also the first minion to meet Kris.

Her prim and professional exterior lasts exactly three seconds. Kris is yawning and dewy-eyed from sleep and his mane is flat and spiking out in weird directions because he always manages to sleep on it funny. He comes out into the hallway where Adam is denying all knowledge of the publicity schedule and yawns at them both. Adam freezes in horror, Rachel freezes in shock and Kris nudges her hand and chirrups.

Rachel softens and bends to fling her arms around Kris. She cries into his neck which leaves Adam hovering clumsily in the hallway and pretending to be fascinated by the door. He doesn't want to leave Kris alone with her because she's still a stranger but he's not cruel enough to yell at her for cuddling Kris while she's crying either.

She lets Kris go after a minute or two and Adam tactfully retreats into the kitchen to make coffee. Kris goes back and forth between the two of them until Rachel's straightened herself up and follows him into the kitchen. With his morning coffee now safely consumed, Adam is feeling generous and he pours her a mug of coffee.

"Sugar's there, cream is in the jug and there's soya milk in the fridge," he pauses. "And since we seem to have missed this step, I'm Adam and this is Kris."

"Kris?" Rachel says, a little skeptically. Kris stops staring wistfully at the fruit bowl and chirrups. "Oh-kay. I wasn't told you had a pet unicorn."

"He's not a pet," Adam clarifies quickly. Kris snorts. "He's ...well, he's not a pet. He's more like a room-mate."

"Is that even legal?" Rachel demands.

"God no," Adam drains his coffee. "Lanie will explain it to you later. Right now, all you need to know is this is Kris, he's with me and the rest is Lanie's department."

Rachel looks at him, then at Kris. "You should really give her a raise."

Rachel turns out to be awesome. She's quiet and insists on being at least mostly professional but she's also terrifyingly efficient and Scarlett's design and concept soul-mate. Adam comes back to find his apartment redesigned every other day and gives up arguing after the first week.

The other two assistants are more problematic. Jeff, who is interning to plump up his resume for grad school, is like a cuddly little puppy. Almost exactly like a cuddly puppy in fact, up and including accidentally peeing on Adam's carpet after what must have been an epic night out with his college buddies. Jeff and Brad can't be left alone together so Adam is obliged to do some fancy schedule shuffling to keep them apart.

The worst part is that Jeff is convinced he knows everything about everything. He's full of advice and keen to play the devil's advocate if anyone tries to explain anything to him. After three days, Brad isn't the only one who hates him and Cassidy starts dropping hints about how Adam's newest spiky arm-warmers would look 'fierce' with some actual blood. Brad declares him an irredeemable straight Frat Boy and Kris, while polite, doesn't ever seem comfortable around Jeff.

Sandy, the last of Lanie's minions, is a brittle blonde who took this job because she was convinced she'd be fired if she didn't. She worries obsessively, chewing on the end of her PDA stylus and has a symbiotic relationship with her phone that even Adam can see isn't healthy. She's on some diet that Adam isn't even asking the name of that bans anything that has actual flavor or texture and she carries snacks everywhere which Adam would be fine with.

Sandy doesn't actually eat the snacks though and that's the problem. Instead she feeds them to Kris. His sugar intake goes up by a factor of ten and he turns into a glittering golden pinball, carooming off the walls and leaving hoof-prints on the lights and the ceiling. Sandy never admits what she's doing and is persistently stunned that they all know when she's been sublimating her cravings through Kris.

Team Strike Ninja (which Adam is not actually allowed to call them, at least not where Lanie can hear him) handle the details of the tour. Cassidy is in charge of wardrobe now and Adam's apartment is always full of people, often half-naked or wearing distractingly tight leather. Adam can't even enjoy the view because they're his band and he has to be responsible and appropriate.

"You know what I miss?" Adam says wistfully to Brad as Tommy stomps past in a tight silver mesh shirt and a leather kilt. "Sex."

"You're the one who won't clear a spot in his schedule to get laid," Brad says unsympathetically.

"You can get laid on tour!" Jeff pipes up. "All those groupies; I've seen them at some of the concerts. Some of those girls, no bra, no panties, hoooo baby!"

Adam pinches the bridge of his nose. "Except for the part where I don't like girls like that, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Jeff shrugs. "Still, you could totally experiment with a groupie. It'd be, like, subversive and shit."

Brad is radiating hate, Adam can actually feel the heat boiling off him and Jeff just slouches on the couch, chewing obnoxiously on some peanuts. Adam presses his thumbs against his temples, breathes in deeply and reminds himself that Lanie will kill him if he kills one of her minions. The silence stretches out past the politely social limits until Adam's phone goes.

It's Lanie. "Your bus has arrived. I've got the driver from your unicorn-group on the way but I'm going to have them park it in Martina's parking lot. As far as anyone knows, this is so you can move your personal shit into the bus, okay?"

"We kinda are," Adam points out and she hangs up on him.

Kris has his own wardrobe by now; mostly scarves and upcycled jewelery. Scarlett and Rachel have been dressing him up so he doesn't feel excluded while Adam and the band get their last fittings done. There are now photos of Kris rocking the Jackie O look complete with over-sized sun-glasses. Brad insists on packing those accessories 'just in case'.

There's also the dozen little gadgets that have been made or adapted for Kris; like the Wii-mote and the modified Kinect. Tommy insists on those.

"We're going to be on the road a lot," he points out logically. "And it's going to be as boring as hell. Trying to beat Kris' Mario Kart streak will totally help keep us from getting un-bored."

"Is that even a word?" Adam grumbles but he lets them pack it all away.

Adam makes Jeff take Kris' blanket out to the bus. It is now possibly the most glittery thing Adam has ever seen and he's been to Pride marches in LA and NY. Jeff puts it in a trash bag which makes Kris freak out and try to trip him up to get it back. Adam calms Kris down with a salad from Martina's, complete with BBQ sauce while Lanie chews Jeff out at the top of her voice.

Unicorn-proofing the bus is difficult. The bus is a lot smaller than the apartment and has windows that don't open enough to let Adam fall through but open more than wide enough for Kris to wiggle out. They do their best and Lanie arranges to have fresh fruit brought over every couple of days.

"This is going to sound crazy," Adam says, after they've done everything they can to unicorn-proof the bus. "But I think we need to move in tonight."

"Because you're not going to get enough of the bus while you're on tour," Rachel snorts.

"No, but I need to be sure Kris is comfortable here," Adam says. "That he's not going to freak out or anything."

"Your unicorn doesn't freak out," Rachel is looking thoughtfully at the bus. "He's like the original hippy."

"Unless you feed him sugar," Adam agrees. "But still, if he's going to freak out about the damn bus, better to have the freak out now rather than when we've got a whole stage-crew with camera phones and mortgages hanging around."

"Point," Rachel scruffles Kris' mane. "Look at you being all media savvy and thinking ahead. I'm certainly not going to argue. I'll leave you boys to your slumber party then. Just remember, you've got a radio interview at eight."

"Sadist," Adam grumps as he organizes the last of his cosmetics in the small bathroom. Kris has zoomed off to continue sniffing around the bus and Rachel snorts, hand coming up to hide a giggle. Adam looks around and Kris is on the huge bed. He looks enthralled and even as Adam watches, Kris bounces.

"Watch the ceiling!" Adam yelps but Kris isn't paying attention. Bouncing is clearly the new most awesome thing ever. Kris bounces around the bed, going higher and higher while Adam tries to catch him. Rachel gives up trying to hide her giggles, folding up and hanging onto the wall as she laughs her ass off.

Adam has to bounce across the bed after Kris because unicorns are apparently variably heavy too. He finally manages to grab Kris in mid-air and the fundamental flaw in this idea hits him about half a second before all four of Kris' hooves do. Adam tries to curl up around his poor crushed balls while Rachel offers to call for help.

"No, that's okay," Adam grits out. "Just toss me that icepack, would you please?"

"I'll just leave your phone here too, okay?" Rachel puts Adam's iPhone on the pillow by his head. "Call 911 if your balls go gangrenous or the swelling doesn't go down. Call Lanie if you start singing soprano."

"It's good to be loved," Adam tells Kris, hissing as he presses the icepack gingerly in place. Rachel closes the door behind her and Kris noses at him, chirruping anxiously. "I'm okay, I'm okay."

Kris makes a skeptical sound and flops into Adam's lap. Adam clutches desperately for his icepack. Kris is still a little space heater and the ice starts melt, dripping into Adam's pants.

It still takes Adam twenty minutes to edge off the bed and into the small shower/bathroom cupboard. He closes the door for ten minutes at most but when he limps back out, the bus has been glittered on. Everything has glitter on it and the light bounces crazily around the room. Adam can feel a headache gathering pressure in his temples. It's like being trapped in a disco ball.

Kris is standing in the middle of the bus, looking proud of himself and Adam sighs. The bed isn't too badly glittered and he crawls in to get some sleep. He's exhausted and his balls hurt and all Adam wants is a good night's sleep, a chance to relax and some good coffee in the morning.

He gets one of the three; Sandy shows up at seven with a venti cup filled with good black coffee. Adam feels like swamp thing and he doesn't even want to think how he must look. Kris, bright and cheerful, bounces around Sandy's feet until she hands over one of the organic nut and fruit bars. Adam latches onto the coffee and ignores Sandy's arched eyebrows until he can feel the prickle of sweet, sweet caffeine clearing the fog of his thoughts.

"Are you okay?" Sandy asks eventually and Adam glares at her, then at Kris who is looking baffled.

"I'm _fine_ ," Adam finishes the coffee. "And I'll be even better if you get me another one of those. We have time before the interview for me to clean up, right?"

"I guess," Sandy chews her lip for a second before she ducks back out. Adam rubs his eyes and goes into the tiny bathroom to assess the damage. It's not good but with the grace of God and both of Adam's pots of concealer, he manages to paste over the black shadows under his eyes and polish himself up. Sandy is back by the time he comes out, holding another coffee and with Kris standing on his hind legs to sniff at it.

"Don't you _dare_ give him coffee," Adam growls and Sandy jumps, nearly dropping the coffee. There's a frantic second of juggling but Adam manages to rescue the precious coffee. Kris is sitting on his haunches (which still looks unnatural), watching them both with his head tilted.

"Get him back to the apartment, would you?" Adam says as his phone beeps another alarm. "I've got to get going."

He doesn't actually feel guilty for leaving Kris in Sandy's care, though he does text Brad to ask him to help. He drinks his coffee and tries to remember who he's interviewing with. He's shedding glitter on the seat and he really doesn't care. Kris had spent the night exploring the bus, prying into corners and climbing the walls to sniff at the windows. Off the bed, the bus' faux-wooden floor made Kris' hooves ring like little bells and Adam hadn't been able to get to sleep while Kris rambled around, pawing at suitcases and loudly eating peanuts from a packet Rachel had left behind.

By the time Adam actually got to sleep, the sun was coming up. He's had four hours sleep and Lanie is updating his schedule with meetings after the interview and Adam scrolls through the list, exhausted just looking at it.

The interview turns out to be with GQ and after a few perfunctory questions about the album, how it feels to be a rockstar and the tour, the interviewer launches into a lively discussion of Cassidy's newest designs and Adam's opinions on the trends worth following. It's more like a conversation than an interview and Adam almost forgets about the tape recorder (vintage, bought on eBay and refurbished). Almost.

"And lastly, this is something I've been admiring about your look since day one, actually, what made you embrace glitter as a fashion statement?" The interviewer is smiling and Adam's brain locks up for a second.

"Well, you can't have glam without glitter," Adam laughs after a second. "Plus, I spend all my free time saving unicorns. Glitter seemed totally appropriate for my image. Most of it's down to some friends of mine who took the idea and ran with it."

"It's a really good look for you," the interviewer agrees and moves on to explore Adam's feelings towards leather. Adam gets through the rest of the interview on charm and a flashing smile. The interviewer shakes his hand and they air-kiss before Jeff whisks Adam away.

As grateful as Adam is to be able to relax, having Jeff chattering about the 'totally hot chick' he fucked last night does nothing for his headache. He pretends to be napping which shuts Jeff up but also means that Jeff takes him right to the office. Lanie is waiting for him at reception, arms folded and Adam groans.

"We need to talk," Lanie gives him a cool once over. "And you need to eat. Up to a bit of multitasking?"

"Maybe," Adam grudges. "If there's coffee."

There is coffee. There is a _lot_ of coffee and Lanie has found samosas. Adam eats four while Lanie asks about the interview and the slumber party. She promises to see about having the floor in the bus carpeted and installing a coffee-maker. Adam is going to have to buy her a car or something. Then she talks about his latest numbers which are good and have the suits all but purring over him.

Adam's getting his fabulous stage show and they're talking t-shirts and merchandizing already. If he wasn't so exhausted Adam thinks, he could dance around the room like Kris on a sugar-high. Lanie taps her fingers on the desk and Adam tenses up. "What?"

"There's something else we need to discuss," Lanie darts a glance over her shoulder. "In private."

Adam kicks the door closed and Lanie pulls out her phone. "We need to do some ground-work before you go on tour. You've been a hermit lately and it's starting to look ...off. You need to start cultivating your public image a little more."

"My what?" Adam manages.

"You need to start going to clubs again," Lanie spells out slowly. "Lots of clubs. I've worked out a list with Bradley and some of your friends that are hip right now. Your meetings are being re-arranged to give you the evenings free. You need to remember to rock the rockstar look and be careful of the photographers."

"You are telling me to go out," Adam says slowly. "To lots of clubs-"

"Looking like a successful rockstar," Lanie interjects.

"As a rockstar and let the tabloids take photos of me while I do it?" Adam finishes. "The hell? I think people will understand me not painting the town red when there's only two weeks left until I'm going on tour."

"I am going to explain this in small words because you are being an asshole about this and I am this close to resigning and leaving you to fuck this up all on your own. You are interesting right now. There are literally dozens of newspapers and internet sites out there that are offering ridiculous amounts of money to get pictures of you. There are two options here; you go out to the nice clubs, you have a good time and the photographers are happy little piggies all the way to the bank. The other option is that you keep up with the hermit act, someone traces your home address and they stake out your apartment," Lanie pauses. "Which one do you think is going to get you nailed on felony possession of a unicorn?"

"I liked you more when you weren't permanently sarcastic," Adam complains. "Fine, I'll do it. Tomorrow night," he holds up his hand. "Non-negotiable. I go out tonight, all the tabloids will get is pictures of me falling asleep in my drink. I don't even want to know what they'd come up with based on that."

"Probably a good thing," Lanie smirks and thumbs her phone. "So, about the pyrotechnics we're planning. Insurance isn't rocking the head-dress, I'm afraid but the set designer has a cheat she thinks might look kinda the same."

Adam goes through the last few changes and signs off on the last of set pieces and visa applications before Lanie finally lets him sulk off home. Who would have thought being a rockstar was so much work? Adam smiles a little at the thought and reminds himself that it will all be worth it. His tour is going to take names and kick ass. He's got a rocking band, free reign over the stage design and special effects and a whole closet full of shiny new outfits in plastic covers. He's just so ready for the damn tour to _start_.

Kris comes racing out to meet him, crashing into the door and giving Adam reason to wonder again how anyone as smart as Kris usually is can keep forgetting that there's a door. There are actual cracks this time and Kris frisks around his legs as Adam stares at the door.

"Is Kris getting bigger?" Adam asks the apartment and Scarlett comes out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee. She looks Kris up and down (or rather down and further down) from the eight inch heels she's wearing.

"He might be. I don't think he's _much_ bigger but yeah, he could be a little bigger." She sips her coffee as Kris paws at Adam's knee for attention. "You've had him about a year now?"

Adam starts to say it hasn't been that long, then he actually works out the dates. "Oh, god, where does the time go?"

"Studio, album, publicity, tour-prep," Scarlett rattles off. "Still, it's a little surprising that he's grown so much. Unicorn foals generally stay tiny for what, five years?"

"Depends on the blessing," Adam frowns down at Kris. "They've never been bred in captivity so the five years is just the most logical guess. There's some researchers that claim it's more - like twenty years more - but that's just based on the way wild blessings have the same number of foals for years."

Scarlett teases him and gets him a coffee and they talk about other things, like Adam's assistant-ordered club crawl. Adam thinks about Kris getting old that night as they're settling into bed. He's never thought of how old Kris is; he's clearly been weaned but unicorn moms are scary creatures and he can't imagine anyone losing Kris and not searching until they find him. There's a twinge of guilt, he had promised himself he was going to find Kris' blessing but, Adam realizes slowly, Kris has never behaved like he was missing his family or desperate to find his blessing. Even a year on, Kris seems perfectly happy to traipse around after Adam, glittering up his life.

Maybe Kris is where he wants to be? Adam hopes so, settling down to sleep. He dreams of his mom's backyard again, this time overgrowing itself and full of delicate plants like it was a month ago and somebody combing their fingers through his hair. Adam has his eyes closed and he can feel his somebody is right there behind him but he doesn't bother to open his eyes. He's been having these dreams most night since the first one, all the same place and the same atmosphere. He's not sure why his sub-conscious keeps dragging it up but it's nice.

Brad is waiting for him when he rolls out of bed the next afternoon. Kris' nest of blanket and duvet is cool to the touch and Adam discovers that he's been seduced back to the apartment's kitchen by fresh croissants and blueberries. Brad is nursing a mug of coffee and greets Adam with a sunny smile.

"What do you want?" Adam grumps.

"A little bird told me you were hitting the club scene tonight," Brad says casually, teeth flashing white as he grins. "And you know what that means!"

"What?"

"SHOPPING SPREE!" Brad yells gleefully and Adam winces a little at the volume. It sounds tempting; he hasn't had time for more than two or three hour shopping trips since Kris showed up. Adam looks down at where Kris is licking up the last of blueberries. His mane feels too stiff and Adam rubs a strand between his fingers. It crackles and Kris blinks up at him. Adam's going to kill Sandy."

"What about Kris? He can't stay with Sandy until she learns not to feed him junk food," Adam puts down his coffee and takes out his phone. It only takes a second to fire off a text requesting Lanie run Sandy through the 'Dummies Guide to Unicorn Nutrition' routine again. "Feel his mane."

"Poor baby," Brad croons and Kris nudges at his hand. "It's cool, Cass has some things he wants to get done and he can sketch here as easily as he can back home. Kris will be fine with him."

Adam hesitates but he hasn't gone shopping for so long and he gives in after a minute and half of Brad's best woobie impression. He does insist on waiting until Cassidy actually gets there before he'll even think about leaving. Cassidy shows up with a bag from Whole Foods and Adam tells Kris to be good.

He has missed shopping, even if almost no-one has the really cute clothes in his size and finding jeans that aren't ridiculous baggy is just pure stress. Brad insists they stop to check out the latest line from MAC and Adam buys half a dozen new eyeliners, a few new lip glosses that really suit him and the new smoothing foundation. He arrives back at the apartment with a cab full of bags and Cassidy laughs his ass off at him.

They get ready together, more people arriving with fierce new looks and Tommy volunteers to unicorn-sit. Kris seems bewildered by the sheer amount of people and retreats to the couch, watching everyone from the safety of Tommy's lap. Adam puts his makeup on with great care. Choosing an outfit that he's okay with his mom seeing him wearing takes longer but finally Adam looks at himself in the mirror and sees a smoking hot rockstar looking back.

He kisses Kris' cheek before he leaves, the gold and silver glitter making his new lip gloss look _awesome_. There are photographers, armies of photographers, crowded up outside the club and they start shouting for Adam before he's even out of the damn car. The flashes go off in an explosion of light and Adam has to shield his eyes from the glare. The photographers are shouting questions and they swarm around him like hungry vampires.

Adam has to squeeze past the bouncers who are half a foot taller than him and take up pretty much the whole doorway before he lets himself laugh. It's a little hysterical but the lights are dim and the music sucks him in to the crowded dance floor where the whole mass of humanity is heaving and gyrating to the beat. Adam loses his group in the first second and has three twinks crowding up around him by the second.

It's like being in a greenhouse, everything's hot and the air is thick and humid. There's a hundred different colognes and perfumes and the walls are painted with tribal designs and there are reflective mosaics on the ceiling. Adam feels like he's riding some sort of LSD inspired amusement park ride.

There are drinks in there, Adam doesn't really keep count. They're all in shot-glasses, a rainbow of bright colors and sweet with a low burn that sinks into his gut. He loses track of time, swaying with pretty boys pressed up all around him while the world swirls past in beautiful ripples of light. He's missed this and when one of the pretty boys around him leans in closer...

He ends up in the bathroom, jeans peeled down and a boy with peroxide blonde hair tipped in pink on his knees, mouth hot around Adam's cock. Adam feels godlike and invincible. This is what he'd dreamed about when he'd dreamed about the rockstar lifestyle. There's another boy around the fringes and Adam's going to fuck him once he's done here. The electric lights overhead are flickering a little and Adam can smell the mix of cologne and sex, better than any drug. He tips his head back as he feels the boy's tongue drag up along the underside of his cock and fuck yeah, this is rock'n'roll.

He gets a cab sometime around dawn, the sky fading to a washed-out blue as he sprawls across the back seat, feeling lazy and satisfied. God, he's missed sex. He tips the cab-driver ten bucks and waves him off. Kris doesn't come running to the door when he opens it but it's so late, it's early so Adam doesn't think much about it. Kris' snoring is coming from somewhere inside the apartment He is a little surprised to find Kris isn't in bed but he's too tired to over-think it. He's still sweaty and a little sticky from the club but a shower is just too much effort.

He pulls off his boots and flops into bed. He has the day off tomorrow, he'll deal with the post-club crud then. He closes his eyes, looking forward to the garden-dream. It doesn't come. Instead, he dreams about being stuck in rehearsal with Simon Fuller telling him that he needs to play his seahorse with "more _feeling_ , Adam!"

Adam wakes up feeling rested but uncomfortable. He's still alone in his bed and Adam stumbles out to the main room where Tommy and Kris are curled up on the couch. Tommy stirs when Adam pokes him and yawns, disturbing Kris who lifts his head to look at Adam then at the ground. He doesn't come prancing over for scritches and when Adam reaches out, Kris turns his head away.

"Are you okay?" Adam looks down at his fingers which have a fine coat of silver glitter, smaller and duller than the exuberant gold and silver glitter Kris normally leaves everywhere. Kris nods and clambers off the couch to go into the kitchen. He doesn't bump Adam's fingers or rub up against his leg. He just trots sedately into the kitchen and Adam hears the tap come on. He turns to Tommy. "What did you feed him? Did you give him junk food?"

"No," Tommy protests immediately. "He ate the apple tarts from the market and he had some sunflower seeds and a little honey. Nothing out of the ordinary, I swear."

Adam believes him but as the day wears on, it becomes more and more apparent that _something_ has gone wrong. Kris is...quiet. Adam hadn't realized how much he depended on Kris' chirrups, whickers and humming to fill up the silence of the apartment. Normally Adam can tell where Kris is by the sound of him investigating a room but Kris isn't making any sounds. He eats the food Tommy and an increasingly worried Adam give him but he doesn't beg for more or launch stealthy raids for more food. His coat looks pale, almost silver now instead of gold and his horn seems darker.

Adam calls an emergency meeting of S.U.N because he is totally freaking out here. Everyone crowds into the living room and Kris trails them in, settling down beside Scarlett. Brad and Alisan look at Kris, then at Adam and frown. Adam explains what's happened and Caroline breaks out the laptop to look up what's known about unicorns. Tommy gets the third degree from Scarlett and Cassidy.

"Look, he was fine last night," Tommy says eventually. "I took him out for a run and he was fine. We came back, I hit the couch and he went to bed."

"He went to bed?" Alisan interrupts. Tommy nods and she turns to Adam. "I thought you said he wasn't in bed when you got home."

"He wasn't," Adam confirms. "He's like a little furnace, I'm certain he wasn't in bed when I got back."

"So something happened last night," Cassidy muses.

Alisan laughs, "It's not like you got deflowered or anything, is it?"

"That myth has been busted," Caroline hollers over from the couch. "Like, a million times."

Adam clears his throat and everyone (except for Kris) turns to look at him. Scarlett's jaw drops. "No way. No _way_! This is seriously about you not being a virgin?"

Brad snorts. "Please, Adam hasn't been a virgin since _long_ before Pocket Sparkle there showed up. I'm proof of that."

"But you were complaining about not having sex," Tommy pipes up. Adam covers his face with his hands and reminds himself that he can't just punch them all in the face. "Remember? You were waxing nostalgic about it."

"So Adam gets laid and Kris gets sick?" Caroline folds her arms. "That's superstitious bullshit and you should all know better!"

"But it's true," Monte points out and they all look at Kris who is looking like a little silver statue curled up on the rug. "So what do we do about it?"

They argue strategy for the next four hours, joined by Lanie and Rachel sometime in the middle. Adam flat out refuses to let anyone take Kris but he doesn't have any useful suggestions aside from that. Instead, he sits on the floor and strokes Kris' back. Kris sighs heavily and closes his eyes.

No-one else comes up with any sort of plan so they decide to wait and see. Kris seems completely disinterested and goes to sleep on one of the armchairs. He doesn't perk up for the rest of the day and that night Adam can't sleep, too aware of the empty half of the bed beside him. He doesn't dream much that night.

The next day, Tommy picks them up for rehearsals and Kris stays in the office, curled up listlessly under the desk. Adam worries his way through the rehearsal, checking on Kris every break to make sure he's breathing. Kris lifts his head every time he's poked but he nibbles on his food and even leaves half an apple-sauce and honey wrap uneaten.

By day three, Adam's on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He's willing to do just about anything to get Kris back to normal; take a vow of celibacy, sacrifice a goat, _anything_. What he does do is send Monte home so it's just him and Kris in the house, order in a delivery of fresh honey from Kris' favorite supplier and get on his knees to beg for forgiveness.

"Please," Adam says earnestly, kneeling on the rug. Kris is curled up on the couch, watching him over his tail. "Please, Kris. I didn't know this would happen and I wouldn't have done anything if I'd known. Please, just please get better."

Kris sighs heavily and licks the honey grudgingly from Adam's fingers but he follows Adam to bed. He doesn't curl up right beside Adam, preferring to trample his half of the duvet into a nest and curl up there. Adam closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

The garden dream is back but it's all wrong. The garden is still filled with plants but it's colder and Adam is shivering. The sky is overcast and the corners of the garden are filled up jagged shadows. Adam isn't alone, he can tell his someone is standing (sitting?) behind him but he can't turn around.

"I'm sorry," Adam says immediately. He's not sure what he's apologizing for but he knows he needs to apologize.

"I-I don't understand," Adam's somebody says in a soft Southern accent, almost lost in the hiss of the wind through the trees. "I'm trying-I am, I swear to God, I am but-"

"But?" Adam manages when the silence seems to have gone on forever.

"But what's the point?" Adam's somebody sighs. "If you're not going to wait for me?"

"I can wait!" Adam says immediately. "I can wait as long as you need me to! I promise, I will, okay? Just-just don't give up on me?"

His somebody sighs and Adam feels a warm hand on his shoulder, thumb brushing his jugular and- He wakes up.

Kris is still breathing deep and slow beside him as Adam blinks around his room. He can't shake the feeling that something important has just happened. His dream is already getting jumbled up and confused and Adam thinks he should be writing it down or something. He's reaching for a pen when Kris sighs and rolls over, cheek against Adam's hip and Adam sinks back onto the bed. He only means to close his eyes for a second but Kris is resettling and Adam can lie here for a minute, just a minute and then he'll...and then he'll...

He doesn't remember if he dreams after that. When he wakes up for real, Kris is munching something loudly and his tail smacks lightly against Adam's chest as he yawns. Adam can remember something he meant to do, right before he fell asleep the second time but the memory comes apart before he can remember any details. He groans and Kris pokes him lightly in the knee. "Good morning to you too."

Kris' coat is gold again, his horn polished and sparkling and he's eating his own body-weight in almonds. It's almost like everything's back to normal but Kris is still wary. He doesn't let Adam do more than pat him for that whole first day and he doesn't come running to meet Adam for another three days after that.

It gets better though and Adam bribes his way back into Kris' good graces with some organic dark chocolate dipped in honey and by letting Kris pick the films for the last night before the tour. Adam refuses point blank to throw a party to celebrate the start of tour. He's going on what is essentially going to be an eight month party, so he wants one last quiet night in before the craziness descends.

He invites the guys from SUN and his band over for pizza and DVDs and they watch Rocky IV, Star Wars and Labyrinth, sprawled out on the couch and floor and eating big slices of pizza. Brad monopolizes Kris' time for most of the evening but everyone from SUN makes time to say goodbye to Kris and give him advice for how to deal with Adam and being on tour.

Adam gets even more advice on how to make sure that Kris is okay. Scarlett makes him promise to email every day and Brad informs Adam that he's expecting at least one call every two days. Adam promises faithfully to keep in touch and after the last credits roll, everyone helps him move the last few things down to the bus. Kris is happily reunited with both of his blankets and settles in immediately to sleep. Adam says his last goodbyes just outside the bus.

Behind him, the sun is coming up and the skies are clear. L.A. is humming to life as Adam hugs Brad and Scarlett and promises to text and email and call as often as he can. Brad is the last to go, looking over his shoulder once before he turns back to his car. Adam waves one last time and climbs back aboard his bus.

Jim, the very nice driver who Adam had met for the first time yesterday morning, nods to him and puts the bus in gear. "Sound-check is at five, Mr Lambert, so we're going to go direct. If you want to grab a nap, that'd be fine."

"Yeah," Adam says around a yawn. "That sounds good."

He's planning to sleep the whole way there. He's nervous about the first real concert but there's a pleasant haze of sleepiness from the long night. Adam rolls into the ridiculously huge bed and closes his eyes.

Kris pokes him awake what feels like just minutes later. He's whining, low and urgent and poking Adam in the side with his nose and horn while he jigs around the bed. Adam gets bounced awake when he tries to roll over. Kris paws at him and whines louder.

"Mmmf?" Adam manages intelligently. "What's wrong, baby?"

Kris darts over to paw at the door, whining low and needy. Adam blinks. He hasn't seen Kris like that since the first night Kris stayed with him. He thinks about that for a second then sits bolt upright. "JIM! PULL OVER!"

Unicorn bladders, Adam thinks moodily, must shrink every mile on the road. It's getting on for three in the afternoon and he and Jim are standing awkwardly at the side of the road, eyes carefully averted from the rustling bushes. It's Kris' sixth pit-stop and Adam's starting to think they'll never get out of LA county.

The bushes are getting visibly greener, branches curving up towards the sun and Kris pops out of the rejuvenated bushes and bounces back up the steps to the bus. Adam sighs and follows him back. He's going to have to install a unicorn rest stop in the back of the bus if this keeps up.

Maybe Kris is scent-marking or something? Claiming a larger territory? Adam pulls out his laptop and starts searching through the SUN database for possible information on unicorns marking their territory. He's so wrapped up in making sure Kris doesn't need a vet that by the time he realizes he should be freaking out over the concert, Jim is pulling into the tiny lot by the stage door.

When Adam stands up as the bus comes to a stop, empty plastic water bottles roll out from under Kris' beanbag. It looks like most of the contents of Adam's mini-fridge. Adam drops them into the trash and crosses to where Kris is peering out the window and chirruping as he sees Tommy and the others getting out of their bus. Adam taps him on the nose. "I'm onto you, mister."

Kris opens his eyes as wide as they'll go and looks innocent. Adam folds his arms and arches an eyebrow. Kris tips his head to look up at Adam like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and Adam feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Kris nuzzles in under Adam's hand and chirrups winsomely.

"I'm still onto you," Adam says firmly before bending down to scruffle Kris in all the good spots. "But thank you."

Kris sneaks out with him, once Adam has checked the buses are all parked so none of the people already gathering around the concert hall can see him 'sneaking' into the backstage area. Rachel is waiting with coffee (for Adam) and a bowl of pressed apple juice (for Kris). She also has Adam's stage manager who is staring at Kris like a kid in the zoo stares at the tigers.

"Adam," Rachel says. "This is Clint Robinson, your stage manager. Clint, this is Adam Lambert. Kris, sweetie?"

Adam has never heard Rachel call anyone sweetie before but Kris looks up, licking the last of the juice off his fur. Rachel smiles maternally. "Kris, sweetie, this is Clint."

Kris trots over and holds up a polite hoof. Clint, looking more and more astounded, shakes hands gingerly. He stares at the glitter on his hand and rubs it between his fingers before looking down at Kris. "Well, goddamn if you ain't the sweetest little colt I laid eyes on. It's a pleasure to meetcha, Kris."

Adam smiles; he has a good feeling about Clint. Anyone with the good taste to like Kris and who Kris likes back is going to be a good person. Clint talks to Adam about the modifications they've made to fit the stadium-sized set onto the smaller concert stage. He clearly knows what he's talking about but Adam has to hide a smile at the way Clint's eyes keep wandering back to Kris who charming biscuit M&Ms out of Tommy and being completely oblivious.

The concert is terrifying, thrilling and euphoric. Adam is terrified from the moment the doors open to the breathless last second before the drums kick in and the lights flare to life. He sings his heart out and the crowd roars in a thunder of sound that echoes back love and adoration. He struts across the stage and owns it. Tommy, painted and alien in the unforgiving light, tips his head back and lets Adam ravage him.

The screams of the crowd hit fever pitch and they howl when Adam flashes them an unrepentant wink and saunters back across the stage. It seems to last forever but Adam's taking his final bow in no time at all as the crowd surges forward and the thunder of the applause drowns out everything else.. Adam stands under the hot lights, smiling wide and basks in it. It's his first concert, the first time that all that applause is _his_ and he can't even see the back of the crowd of people who came here and paid money to hear him sing.

He stumbles off stage and sweeps Kris up into a whirlwind hug that sucks in the whole band and Lanie and Sandy. They're all laughing and cheering and some people (including Adam) are crying. They've done it! There's champagne and shots but Adam does the meet and greet first. He smiles and signs autographs and laughs into camera-phones, cheek-to-cheek with giddy fans.

Adam collapses into bed that night and sleeps through the whole night of driving. When he wakes up, they're rolling into Portland, Oregon. Kris is looking wistfully out the window and Rachel and Lanie take him out of the city during sound-check so he can stretch his legs. Kris comes back looking windswept and with a tiny tumbleweed tangled up in his tail.

Tommy brushes the tangles out of his coat, supervised by Adam who is getting his outfit tailored and Brad via v-chat. Brad is scathing and even Adam winces once or twice but Tommy finishes brushing out Kris' coat, dusts off as much glitter as he can and just stands back.

"He's missing you two," he shrugs when Adam arches a demanding eyebrow. "I get to see your stupid faces all the time. I can afford to be generous."

Kris frisks around them and bounces around in the wings during the encore when Adam brings the whole crowd to their feet, screaming and cheering. Adam comes off the stage on a wave of good feelings. Clint and Rachel have gotten pizza and booze. There's still this crazy energy fizzing away and they play Mario Kart for hours. Kris kicks ass comprehensively and wins the entire band's supply of M&Ms and peanut butter cups before Adam coaxes him into retiring undefeated.

Touring is exhausting, Adam's either the glam-rock version of the Energizer bunny when he's got a mike in his hands or talking with fan or he's asleep on any horizontal surface that stays still long enough. He's always busy, always racing towards another deadline and there are a hundred things that need his attention if he does find a free moment.

The closest he gets to relaxing is the garden dreams. His mom's garden is bigger now, there's a fountain from his dad's new garden tucked away in the corner. There are trees from his grandmother's garden, exactly as he remembers. He'd been seven at the time so the trees tower up over him like redwoods.

"They're beautiful," his somebody says and Adam smiles.

"I'd say they're not the only things that are beautiful," Adam says, looking up at the trees. "But I don't actually know what you look like."

"I-..." There's a pause. "You will, okay? Soon."

"I'm holding you to that," Adam says, going a little closer to the trees. "My grandad planted these trees when he bought the house. My grandma loved peaches but they're a pain to grow and she always wanted to be able to grow her own peaches. The soil wasn't right, the only place they could put it wasn't going to get enough sun...you name it and it was wrong. Grandad and Grandma were never really 'accepted wisdom' people so they planted their trees and they grew."

"I know," his somebody says softly and Adam keeps talking, sharing memories he didn't even know he still had until his alarm pulls him back to the real world.

The tour crisscrosses the States and Adam stops trying to keep track of anything but the next stop down the road. He doesn't think anything of it when he sees 'Toronto' scrawled under 'Royal Oak, Mic.' He has interviews before then - six lines of Jeff's careless scrawl and Kris is in the band's bus.

Adam comes out of the interviews to find Lanie compulsively tapping at her phone and radiating 'crisis control' in big red neon letters.

"Oh god," Adam moans. "Now what?"

"Just a few minor red-tape issues," Lanie bares her teeth in what might be meant to be a smile. The reporter scuttles off and Adam has to fight not to back up when Lanie turns that rictus of a smile on him. "Why don't we step into the conference room, Adam?"

Adam doesn't dare turn his back on her and Lanie barely waits for the door to close before she starts talking in a rapid-fire panic of words that makes Adam's head hurt just trying to keep up. He holds up his hands to stem the tide. "Wait, wait, what are you talking about?"

"We're in Toronto the day after tomorrow and don't even ask me how we're going to get everything on the bus for that," Lanie rubs her eyes. "But that means, Adam, we're going to have to cross the border."

"Well, yeah," Adam says. "Toronto's in Canada."

"I swear," Lanie says with an unfocused smile that makes Adam edge back another couple of steps. "There are times when I just want to punch you in your face again and again. Do you remember our little talk about the HUNTER Act? Federal charges for smuggling unicorns across the border?"

"Oh."

"Oh," Lanie mimics him, pinching the bridge of her nose. "First, we need to clarify the plan on how we're getting Kris past the border then we're discussing the awesome raise you'll be giving me for managing this shit."

They have an emergency meeting on the band's bus and come up with a plan. It's not the best plan Adam's ever heard. In fact, when all the fancy words are taken out, it pretty much comes down to hiding Kris in Adam's closet behind the sparkly costumes with a bag of almonds to keep him quiet.

Adam can't decide which is worse, the plan or the fact that it _works_. The border police have a drug dog called Cindy who sniffs at the closet and wags her tail. Her handler doesn't notice because he's getting Adam to sign like four different copies of his album at the time and Adam sees Kris poke his head out long enough to touch noses with Cindy who wags her whole body in response. Kris catches Adam's eye and ducks back behind the costumes.

Five minutes after that, they're on the road to Toronto. Adam collapses on his bed with an arm over his eyes. The bed bounces as Kris sniffs around him and pokes him. Adam tries to swat him with his free hand but Kris is faster and more co-ordinated than he is. Adam gives up after about a minute and lets his arm fall onto the pillow.

"My life was a lot more predictable before you showed up," he tells Kris who whuffs down at him from where he's standing on Adam's pillows. "And there was far less chance that I was going to be arrested and locked up somewhere like Alcatraz."

Kris whuffs again and Adam reaches up to ruffle his mane into spikes. "Yeah, I know. It was a lot less fun too."

Kris' answering chirrup is smug. Adam yawns and dozes some until Jeff comes to get him for sound-check. Adam has a quick radio interview after so Kris goes back to band's bus while Adam grits his teeth through another inane interview filled with questions he's already answered a hundred times.

He's already cranky when he stomps across to the bus to get his unicorn. There's only a few hours to the show but Adam is the rockstar and if he wants a quarter of an hour quality unicorn-snuggling time, he's going to get it. He knows the code for the bus anyway so he doesn't bother to knock.

LP and Monte are sprawled out on beanbags, laughing so hard that Adam thinks they're having a seizure for a second. He actually has his phone out to call the paramedics before he realizes. He starts to put his phone back in his pocket. Then he sees why they're laughing and changes his mind. The paramedics are going to be needed after all.

Tommy is sitting cross-legged on the floor with an open bag of almonds and a small jar of honey in his lap. Kris is sitting on his haunches in front of him and Tommy dips an almond in the honey and holds it up. He has Kris' riveted, unwavering attention and he says "Crawl."

Kris isn't exactly built to be able to crawl but he manages to scoot along on his belly surprisingly well. Almost like he'd been practicing, in fact. Adam doesn't move. Tommy laughs and lets Kris gobble up the almond and lick the honey from his fingers.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Adam explodes. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

LP falls off his beanbag and Monte whacks his head off the wall behind him. Tommy turns to stare at him.

"That's _Kris_ ," Adam snaps. "Aside from that, he's also one of the rarest and most important species on the planet! You. Do. NOT. Teach. My. Unicorn. To. Crawl. Not for nuts, not for money, not for ANYTHING!"

"It's not like we were-" Tommy tries but Adam just rolls right over him.

He doesn't actually remember what he says next but it's loud and it makes Monte blanch. Then Lanie comes in to shout at him for shouting and Adam shouts back at her. It gets worse from there and finally Adam storms out with Kris tucked under one arm like a glittery gold man purse.

Kris sabotages Adam's bad mood almost instantly. He's never been carried like this before and is cheerfully banging his hooves together. They chime like a xylophone and there's definitely a melody there. It takes Adam all of five steps to recognize the tune as 'I Will Survive'.

"Smart-ass," Adam grumps but he's smiling by the time they've made it across to his bus.

Adam spends the night playing 'Guess the tune' with Kris who has been sneakily learning country music and showtunes. (Adam is going to _kill_ Neil.) He sleeps that night and dreams of his Mom's garden but all the colors are smeared and blurred and there's no details but he tastes salt and iced tea in light, inexperienced kisses.

When he wakes up the next morning, Tommy is waiting outside his bus door with coffee. Adam knows he gave him the code for the door but Tommy doesn't meet his eyes, just holds out the bucket-sized paper cup and says "We need to talk." in a rush of words.

"Okay," Adam waves him in and Kris comes bounding over to sniff at Tommy's pockets for the treats he knows must be there. Adam hesitates over the apology bubbling behind his teeth and Tommy speaks before he's sorted out his words.

"I'm sorry," Tommy is looking down at his hands. "I-we were bored. It's weird being so far from home and it's kinda boring being stuck on the bus for hours. We just got bored."

"I'm still not happy with you," Adam warns. Kris is snuffling at Tommy's hoody pockets, utterly indifferent to the delicate conversation happening over his head. Adam reaches out to ruffle up his mane and Kris nips at his hand. "But Kris doesn't seem that worked up about it so I'm not going to shout at you again."

"Kris is..." Tommy's hands come out of his pockets to comb through Kris' mane. "I mean, I know we kinda take it for granted but..." he laughs and it's amazed and awed. "Trust me, Adam, we all know how incredible it is to have a unicorn in our lives. I don't think you know how much it means, actually?"

"Oh?" Adam is ready to be offended all over again. Tommy doesn't look up and Kris is leaning into his fingers with his eyes half-closed and Tommy smiles.

"Not in a bad way, just...Adam, you sorted yourself out. You knew you were going to be a rockstar and you...you just went for it. You knew you were gay and you liked platform boots and all these things and it's awesome, don't get me wrong," he trails off. "But not everyone gets that, Adam. Not everyone is brave enough to just tell the world to get fucked."

"I know," Adam says like Tommy isn't talking about some stranger from the planet Glam-rock. Adam's dreamed of being a rockstar since he was six but he still pinches himself before every concert, just to check it's real.

"And some of us," Tommy smiles down at Kris who tips his head up to Tommy scratch the wispy little tuft of hair under his chin and chirrups lazily. "Some of us are lucky enough to get a little time with a real live unicorn. I wore make-up back before I came to the audition, you know that? But I hadn't cooked real food for-fuck, years before I started hanging out with you two."

"You make awesome food," Adam mentions because it really needs to be said and it's pure truth.

"I know. Now, I mean," Tommy grins up at him in a brief flash of teeth. "I've left too many things on wire racks and come back to crumbs to doubt it now. But that's not my point. My point is that I wasn't okay with being a good cook, not until I had the bottomless stomach here following me around and making puppy-dog eyes until I baked him something. A real live unicorn who liked my cooking," Tommy shrugs, his gaze sliding to the floor and shoulders hunching up a little. "And it was like, all of a sudden, I really was a good cook because you know, a unicorn was eating my food. All those stupid little things that you don't do because you're afraid or you're shy? Then you-you just do them and Kris likes them, it makes them easier to keep doing. I mean, if a unicorn likes you just fine, then who cares what the world thinks, you know? That-that's what it means to have a unicorn in your life."

"Wow," Adam says. He looks helplessly down at Kris who is blissfully oblivious, tail flicking back and forth as Tommy scratches under his chin. This would be a lot easier if Kris could talk or at least write something. Adam is totally in touch with his emotional side but there's a guilty thought whispering in the back of his mind that he's been an asshole about this. "I...can't say I ever really thought of that."

"I know," Tommy smiles. "I hated you, you know? Back when we first met. Not hate-hate but god, I was so jealous of you!"

"Yeah," Adam smirks a little. " _That_ I knew."

Tommy pulls a face and Kris chirrups a complaint that the scritches have stopped. "Seriously, it just didn't seem fair. You had this sweet recording deal, all this awesome stuff _and_ you had a unicorn? So not fair."

"Well," Adam says and stalls out because yeah, having Kris _isn't_ fair but Adam's never complained because it's been unfair in his favor. Life really isn't fair and Adam isn't prepared to deal with the reality that he's not ever going to be able to bitch about that, not even if he gets hit by a meteor tomorrow. He's really been a lucky bastard.

"I got over it," Tommy shrugs. "But you're still the luckiest fucker in South Cal, just so you know."

Later, Adam takes Kris out when they're parked off one of the highways because Kris has his nose pressed to the door like a puppy who's heard the word 'walk'. It's cold, spring just a whisper under the bitter chill and Kris fluffs up like sparkly cotton candy. Adam laughs at him and Kris huffs off behind some bare twigs pretending to be a bush. Adam blows on his hands and watches the mist of his breath blow away towards the North Pole.

That night when Adam sings 'Sleepwalker', he thinks about what Tommy said and imagines what it would be like to be the one watching someone else live a dream you've wanted so hard. It comes pouring out, bittersweet and soft, threading into the music as Monte and Tommy shore him up and the dancers spin slowly around them all. There's utter silence as the last 'Lemme out of this dream' trails into silence.

Then the crowd start roaring and cheering and Adam smiles, half-blind with the stage lights and the air seems brighter, flecks of glitter catching in the rainbow of colors and he can't even see the crowd, only the flashes of cameras and the glow-sticks waving excitedly. He spends two hours that night out signing with fans and smiling when they crowd around with the camera phones up. He's exhausted when he finally ducks back into the dressing room, Kris is waiting for him, chin on crossed front legs.

Adam leans on him a lot as they shuffle back to the bus and Kris snuffles at his cheek when Adam topples into bed. Adam wakes up with a solid patch of glitter that takes twenty minutes of careful and meticulous exfoliation to scrub away. He still hugs Kris tight enough to make him squeak.

'Sleepwalker' becomes Adam's favorite song in the month they spend bouncing around North America. It's the song that resonates with the crowds best and he loves that feel, the way that they connect because yeah, Adam's a lucky son-of-a-bitch but he still remembers how it felt when all he had was a dream and a hollow ache in his chest. He can hear that feeling echo back from the fans screaming and pleading in the dim halls. He sings back the promise that it gets better, there are dreams that really do come true and they love him for it.

The tour is sold out and Lanie's waiting for him when he stumbles off stage, high on the nearly-hysterical cheering of the crowd and giggling as Kris bounces around his feet. She has to shout in his ear and Adam hears maybe two words in ten but the words he hears are 'plane' and 'unicorn-proofing'.

Lanie is kind enough to fill in the blanks two days later when she drags him out of his bed on the bus and tells him to get 'pretty'. Adam sticks his head under the cold water until the fog in his brain clears enough for him to tidy himself up and get his eyeliner on in two neat lines. Lanie has coffee and Adam drinks a large cup while fumbling with the buttons of his fly.

Only when he's fully-dressed and somewhat caffeinated does Adam actually ask "What the hell?"

"You've got an interview with NYT," Lanie says casually. "In about forty minutes and your flight leaves an hour after. I thought you might want to pack some of your personal items before you go dazzle the press."

"Personal items?" Adam says blankly. He's a survival diva, capable of packing all his makeup and wardrobe necessities in fifteen minutes. Lanie arches her eyebrows meaningfully but the penny doesn't drop until Kris chirrups hopefully from the vicinity of the mini-fridge. "Shit."

"As I said," Lanie glances out of the still-open door and Adam can see a bald, sweaty man in a suit that was probably well-fitting forty pounds and several years ago. He doesn't know the guy and he stiffens, edging protectively in front of Kris. "I think you need to sort some packing out. The proceeds from the tour are already way over so your management is upgrading you."

"Weren't we already going in first class?" Adam dimly remembers Monte and LP making bets on how much champagne they were going to drink.

"Yes, but after the British tour dates, you'll be flying a private plane," Lanie looks at Kris and her lips purse. "But the flight to the UK is going to be first class, yes."

Adam moves over to the door, flashes a totally fake smile at Baldy Sweaty Guy and closes it. He wishes he could have banged it. Kris is pawing at the fridge door and sounding more pitiful by the second. Adam crosses to dig out his fruit bowl from behind the beers and vodka. "What are we doing about Kris?"

Lanie sighs. "Jeff wants to leave him here, Sandy doesn't but she's scared of being caught by the Feds. Rachel thinks we can smuggle him into the hold."

"He'll freeze!" Adam protests immediately. Kris looks up, chewing on a half of a pineapple that was probably bigger than his head before it was cut up and comes across to lean his shoulder against Adam's leg. "Or suffocate!"

"You'd rather leave him here?" Lanie challenges and the words coagulate under his adam's apple. He doesn't want to leave Kris here; just the idea makes a cold sweat break out and his stomach roll into a knot of dread. But he doesn't want Kris frozen or suffocated either. Helplessly, Adam pets Kris' neck and gets an affectionate nuzzle that leaves a lopsided pineapple stain on the knee of his jeans.

"Look," Lanie says carefully. "I can't promise anything, okay? I'm going to do my best though and I need your help."

"Anything," Adam says fervently.

"It would be a _lot_ easier to get a Kris-sized bag on the plane than a Kris-sized...well, Kris," Lanie waves her hand at him. "He's not exactly the easiest thing to hide."

Adam looks down. Kris is shedding, tufts of golden hair that sparkle in the sunlight and the ever-present glitter is practically leaving a visible trail. His hooves are polished silver, chiming off the floor as he scrambles after a stray strawberry in an excited tangle of legs. "Yeah. That's true."

"So," Lanie produces a collapsible rucksack that looks big enough to hold _Adam_. "You get him to get in here and keep quiet and I'll get him on the plane safely, okay? We'll say it's your drug stash or something."

Adam's expression must crack her up. Lanie giggles high and delighted and the huge smile that takes up her whole face is the most positive expression Adam has seen on her face since tour started. She leaves the rucksack in his hands and Kris looking up at him quizzically, licking the strawberry juice off his fur. Adam looks at Kris, then at the bag and sighs.

Kris turns out to be very happy to get into the bag; the problem is explaining to him that he needs to be quiet. Adam's never noticed how talkative Kris is, chirruping and humming and whining. Halfway through Adam's second explanation of 'being quiet' and what this entails, he takes a break to explain why Kris should not kick him in the kidneys when he tries to put the bag on.

He leaves Kris and the bag to Tommy and hurries off gratefully when Lanie calls him for the interview. The NYT interviewer is eager to talk about Adam's 'ground-breaking' and 'trail-blazing' status as a gay guy in the music industry. Adam nearly laughs in his face and the interview is full of politics and insistent questions on Adam's stance on DADT and gay marriage.

Finally, half an hour before Adam's flight leaves, the guy thanks him for his time and stands to go. Adam shakes his hand and sprints for the door. Lanie has a car waiting and the driver gets him to JFK just before final call. Adam is shooed on board by a disapproving stewardess who flashes him a dimpled smile once he's safely at the door and wishes him a good trip.

Adam's band, assistants and miscellaneous stage crew take up the whole of first class and Tommy has the aisle seat beside Adam. He has the rucksack on his lap and is feeding it slices of banana. Adam drops into his seat as the stewardess finishes pointing out the safety card on the back of each chair.

Kris scrambles out the second Tommy opens the zipper and shakes himself vigorously. Adam and Tommy get glitter-drenched before he bounds determinedly into Adam's lap and settles down. Adam pets him and tucks a blanket up around his legs that mostly hides Kris. Kris resettles so his chin is on the armrest closest to the window and sighs. New York is a jigsaw of roads and buildings falling away behind them as Adam yawns and tips his chair back.

He wakes up halfway through the flight to pee and eat the glorified salad meal but otherwise he sleeps. The dreams start on stage, just Adam alone in the circle of lights with the crowd an alien rush of sound beyond. The colors are sharp and everything's clearly in focus. But it doesn't smell of sweat and makeup and two thousand people crushed together. The air is fresh and full of the smell of growing things.

"Is this better?" His somebody is behind him. Adam can feel the faint heat of his skin against his back. His somebody sounds amused and affectionate but there's a thin line of worry under it all that Adam doesn't think he was meant to hear.

"Not better," Adam half-turns but the stage-left lights are blinding and all he sees is the edge of a shadow. "Just different. It's like the garden, I'm just growing hopes instead of vegetables."

"That..." his somebody sounds dubious, voice warm with laughter. "That's kinda cheesy, don't you think?"

"I know," Adam grins. "But it's still true."

"I guess," his somebody sounds unconvinced. "But I maybe wouldn't talk about it like that with other people."

"You know I save my cheese for you, baby," Adam purrs, amping up the sex growl to hear hear his somebody laugh. It's meant as a joke but his somebody hesitates a second too long. _Oh._

Adam hasn't ever thought of these dreams as 'wet dreams' even if he calls them emotional-porn in the privacy of his own head when he's feeling cynical. He's never thought about sex with his somebody, never even tried to imagine what his somebody must look like except as a wishful urge to put a face to the feeling of warmth and pride. For the first time, Adam feels the lack and wonders. He thinks about sex with everyone, almost never seriously but just the casual ' _I wonder..._ ' thinking to fill up the time. But he's never thought about sex with the one person(figment?) that he knows loves him completely?

"Lucky me," his somebody interrupts Adam's chain of thought. "I can see why you love being here, even if it's terrifying. There's nothing like it, is there?"

"No," Adam says and the dream settles back into the garden, Adam in the cheap wrought iron garden chair and his somebody perched on the back, almost close enough to touch.

When he wakes again, Tommy is coaxing a crabby Kris back into the rucksack and they're sinking through gray clouds to patchwork of green and gold fields and England.

"Scotland," LP corrects gruffly. "We're starting in Scotland."

"We are not," Monte argues. "That's London."

They argue it out until the pilot comes on the intercom to welcome the passengers to the UK and announce they'll be touching down in Birmingham Airport in the next few minutes. Tommy laughs at them both and the rucksack shifts as Kris tries to investigate. How they make it through customs is a miracle, Adam thinks later. The police officers are so busy watching for the inevitable murder by band-mate that none of them look twice at the rucksack slung across Tommy's narrow shoulders.

The UK is mad-crazy and Adam loves it. Trying to shock most British people is like trying to punch a teeter-totter, no matter what you hit them with they rock back upright and carry on. The beer is incredible and Adam gets embarrassingly drunk when they play in Sheffield during a 'Real Ale' festival. He buys a stupid amount of chocolate to send to everyone back in LA and pack into his bus.

In Scotland, two concerts before they leave for the mainland, Adam gets an awesome leather kilt and an invitation to the Royal Unicorn Highland Sanctuary. Tommy tags along, Kris and backpack in tow. European blessings are some of the best preserved in the world and the unicorn has been the symbol of Scotland since the twelfth century.

Adam gets to follow Aberdeen, a gruff old man in a kilt who was named after his da's favorite football club (and who is not about threatening anyone who laughs at him with his very real halberd), through the sanctuary. Aberdeen is the Yeoman Reeve of Royal Scots Reeves who mange and protect the Royal Scottish Blessing and he leads them straight into the top of the hill. There is the blessing, a shifting sea of gold-silver-blue-black-grey-red racing across the gorse and up sheer cliffs like mountain goats.

"They don' much like strangers," Aberdeen tells him. "We have some of the wee babies and their dams below if you've a fancy."

Adam gets to spend a few hours walking the wet marshlands and being grateful for his heavy hiking gear. Aberdeen makes them promise not to go upsetting the blessings and stumps off to wait for them in the newborn shelters. Tommy waits until he's well gone before opening the zipper.

The blessing come crowding around when Tommy lets Kris out. Adam watches Kris sniffing politely at the nose of Rowen, the belle demoiselle or herd leader and thinks privately that Kris is still the most amazing unicorn he's ever seen. Adam might be biased but Kris is a sunny gold that shines even in the wet and damp of the Highlands while Rowen is a grayer gold that looks washed out and faded beside him.

Still, there's something breathtaking about seeing so many unicorns and Adam looks around at dozens of dark, wise eyes and feels jealousy like an acid pinch in his gut. There's nothing like this blessing in America. The Yellowstone blessing has hovered around sixty-to-one hundred for the last five years and is probably the biggest one left. There have to be ten times that thronging around Adam and Tommy and more come skittering down the cliff every minute. Aberdeen told them that there were four Royal blessings in the British Isles, even though the Irish blessing now belongs to the Republic of Ireland and maybe twenty or thirty smaller blessings in each country. Two million, one hundred and eighty thousand unicorns.

It's a staggering figure and Adam writes a Facebook update with lots of exclamation marks on his phone, taking a couple of pictures of the unicorns around him (carefully excluding Kris from the one he uploads to Twitter with the caption 'Why can't we have nice things like this?').

Rowen comes trotting gravely over to him. She must be old, Adam realizes as she sets each hoof gingerly down and breathes easier once she comes to a careful stop in front of him. Kris is trotting alongside her, humming low and worried in his throat. Rowen ignores him, looking up at Adam. She's probably five and a half feet at the shoulder, tall enough to almost be able to look him in the eye. She extends her neck, sniffing thoughtfully at him.

' _You are a good man,_ ' she writes in precise silver cursive. Adam stares at the glowing letters as they dissolve into the air between him and Rowen. ' _Kristopher is wise in his choice. His mother will approve. Take care of him._ '

"Always," Adam says. "Ma'am."

' _You have a silver tongue, Mr Lambert,_ ' Rowen writes, then curves her neck primly down. Adam can see the amusement gleaming in her dark eyes. ' _I approve. You remind me much of Sir Walter. You are indeed a good man._ '

"Thank you?" Adam thinks it would be inappropriate to Google 'Sir Walter' in front of this gracious creature.

' _I will tell Aberdeen to let Kristopher leave with you,_ ' Rowen writes then. ' _He should stretch his legs before you put him back into that bag._ '

"Thank you," Adam says, glancing at Tommy. "We don't keep him there much, I promise. It's just safer right now if no-one sees him."

' _He is gold, of Adsullata's line,_ ' Rowen writes in neat precise lines, adding ' _You should return to the barn before it gets dark. The footing can be treacherous._ '

"We will," Adam promises dazedly. "Thank you, ma'am."

Rowen inclines her head and Adam bows reflexively. He hears the 'click' of Tommy's camera phone and glares sideways at him. Tommy is tucking his iPhone back into his jacket pocket and pretends not to see. Rowen snorts in amusement, nods graciously to the three of them and turns to walk sedately away. She picks up her speed judiciously until she's running, the blessing falling in behind her and Adam watches them run with a mix of awe and jealousy.

Kris bumps his cold hand with a startlingly warm nose and Adam jumps. Kris is wet, fur soaking the water straight from the cool misty air but he chases his tail around Adam's legs until he trips up and goes rolling down the slight slope to land in a puddle. His mane gets soaked, plastered to his nose and over his eyes and Kris sits up, looking so wholeheartedly indignant that Adam laughs. Tommy looks around and his eyes go wide before he starts laughing too.

Kris snorts disgustedly at them both and hops nimbly out of his puddle to stalk off like an offended cat towards the distant lights of the barns. Still laughing, Adam and Tommy follow him down.

The barns are big, warm places with open doors and clean straw underfoot. The rest of the band are there, peering at the portly ladies and the tiny foals who are lying under the big electric heat lamps. Kris shakes himself off and finds a lamp with only a small foal napping under it who can be nudged over to make room.

There are photographers there from Her Majesty's Royal Scots Revees and a few of the more trustworthy papers. Adam poses with the tiny foals who are all eyes and curiosity with the placid ladies chewing on the carrots that Monte brought in the background. He even makes a totally off-the-cuff press statement about how he hopes one day to see a blessing like this in the USA and he has his picture taken with a small smokey gray foal sitting in his arms and glowering indiscriminately at the photographers.

No-one looks at Kris. The red glow of the lamp turns his coat bronze and he's sprawled out with the small foal who was under the lamp first playing King of the Castle on his back. Kris thwaps him halfheartedly with his tail and resettles. He's too big to be one of the foals and still smaller than the queens but no-one even looks twice at him.

When the photo op finally wraps and Tommy brings the rucksack over, Kris flops inside it with the natural grace and discretion of a concussed albatross. Tommy tucks his hind-legs and his tail in and closes the zipper halfway. Kris' nose pokes out and sniffs at the air. Apparently satisfied that there is nothing edible or otherwise interesting in range, Kris shifts around (which makes the bag shift like Tommy's got a snake under his coat) and goes to sleep.

He still snores. Adam is pretty much immune after a year of sharing a bed but Tommy starts to fray after five minutes and Adam takes the rucksack after ten, when everyone else has moved to the edge of earshot. Kris sleeps the whole way back the buses, lovingly recreated copies of the American buses but sized for the insane roads that Europeans treat like NASCAR tracks.

Adam logs in to check his Facebook and Twitter. It's early enough his publicity agent probably isn't through her Google Alerts yet which gives him half an hour. There's already like two thousand 'likes' on Facebook and four thousand re-tweets. There's also a two page email from Brad that is mostly exclamation marks and a more reasoned email from Caroline that mentions that SUN's monthly donations are up by three hundred percent.

It's the same across Europe, every country happy and proud to show off their blessings to Adam and there are so many unicorns that Adam buys like a store's worth of memory cards and a new camera. Unicorns in Europe come in all sizes; Adam meets the aptly-named 'Goliath' in Poland and a pocket-sized 'Glitter' in Italy. Goliath is bigger than a Shire horse, five hundred pounds of bulky muscle with a black coat and golden socks. Glitter is a brittle silver and barely bigger than a chihuahua.

European unicorns come in all the colors Adam can imagine - purple, green, blue and even dappled red on silver - but he never sees a unicorn as golden as Kris. Kris spends a lot of time running around with half-grown unicorns while Adam's getting photographs taken with serious-faced people and talking up SUN and unicorn preservation.

They're going to Russia direct from Poland. Lanie makes a point of reminding everyone to behave themselves and Adam gets three pages of 'acceptable' unicorn activist talking points. Russia apparently hasn't forgotten Reagan’s plan to gas unicorn blessings during the Cold War and there's a certain understandable tension when Adam starts talking about increasing the size of American blessings.

What no-one is prepared for is the fact that Russia (or at least the parts of it they're traveling through) apparently missed the memo about spring. There is snow everywhere. Adam loves snow and there is a snowball fight every night between the band/dancers and the stage crew.

It's the first real cold weather that Adam's had Kris for and the first time Adam takes Kris outside in the snow, Kris' winter coat comes in. It's hilarious; Kris puffs up like a balloon animal and the longer, shaggier coat makes him look like a tiny, _fabulous_ yeti. Adam takes a bunch of photos which he emails to Brad. He wakes up the next morning to detailed instructions about shears, where to find them and how to use them.

Three days after that, Lanie brings a massive care parcel from Martina that has enough food for everyone and five carefully sealed bottles of BBQ sauce that Adam locks in the glove compartment for their own protection. Kris doesn't shed while he's in yeti mode unless Adam brushes him. He also gets cold and shivers pathetically if his coat gets knotted and the snow gets him wet.

Adam makes Lanie work her assistant-to-the-stars magic on his calendar and find an extra hour a day. He grooms Kris while everyone else is busy because Kris will stay still and co-operate when it's just Adam. Tommy will sneak in hazelnuts or pralines and hide them around the room, Monte's trying to teach Kris some stupid pop song and LP would just watch, in a judgmental way. (Adam might be projecting a little.)

The Russian shows are magnificent, huge spaces filled to bursting with people who yell and clap and chant. Adam memorizes a few necessary points and everyone sings along. It's a whole different dynamic to the crowd. Adam feels like he's riding the crest of a tsunami and people are wearing brightly colored unicorn t-shirts.

Adam's still having 'garden' dreams but the setting's shifted again to a kickass palace of ice and crystal. Exploring it is like being trapped in a labyrinth but his somebody is there and Adam talks for hours about high school and the traumas of growing up. It's a good method of getting closure.

Kris, predictably, sheds his winter coat over the course of five minutes once they fly to more temperate climates in India. Adam is going to have to buy the damn plane. Lanie assures him it will be cheaper than paying to clean up unicorn fur.

Kris likes flying when he doesn't have to be in the rucksack. He is fascinated by the view through the windows, keeping his nose pressed to the glass the whole trip. Even Tommy and Monte offering him cocoa nibs doesn't distract him.

"I was expecting a lot more antics," LP admits, sprawled out on his reclined chair and watching Kris. "This is not what I expected."

"Shut up and don't jinx it," Adam says.

India is crowded, hot and beautiful. Everyone is friendly and welcoming and there are unicorns at every shrine and temple. Adam enjoys every second, until they run out of BBQ sauce. He'd never noticed how much of Kris' diet was made up of BBQ sauce until Kris was moping around the bus like a teenager with a curfew. Kris sighs soulfully at him every five seconds and licks hopefully at the sparkling clean bottles whenever Adam mentions food.

Indian BBQ sauce is pretty much non-existent. There are some commercial brands that turn Kris' coat waxy and plastic before Adam throws them out but nothing like a homemade sauce. Kris pines visibly and the entire tour is calling in favors and conspiring to smuggle some of Martina's sauce from California by the end of the first day.

Customs were a nightmare and the sauce kept being sent back. Adam tears his hair out and everyone stresses over it. They go a little mad probably because when Monte comes back with a bottle of local curry sauce, Adam says 'Try it!' without thinking twice.

Feeding nearly a liter of extra-spicy Madras sauce to a unicorn, Adam learns five seconds later, is a _bad_ idea. Kris literally breathes fire, a huge belch of red and orange flame. Adam loses his phone, his iPod, two perfectly worn-in pairs of jeans and the mini-fridge full of water bottles to the ensuing fire and all his bedclothes are scorched and ruined.

"Do NOT feed the unicorn hot sauce!" is added to the list of touring do's and don'ts and Adam has to sleep with the band that night while the fire on his bus is put out. Kris spends the night with Rachel and twenty buckets of ice water, a safe distance from anything flammable. It still takes another five days for Kris' fire-breath to wear off.

There are two bottles of BBQ sauce waiting at the hotel in Tokyo. Kris eats a salad with BBQ sauce and falls asleep right after. Adam falls into bed, relieved and exhausted. He dreams of being back in the garden with a barbeque going in the background, smoke rising off the coals to hide the shape of his somebody.

"Going native?" Adam teases.

"It looks like fun," his someone confesses, words thickened into a proper Southern drawl. "Always wanted to try it."

Adam laughs and settles into his deck-chair, watching fluffy clouds drift across the sky.

There's a fresh crisis waiting when he wakes up. Lanie and the entire band are assembled in his room, there's a bowl of noodles and Kris is sitting as far from the noodles as he can manage, nose turned up and away from them. Nothing will convince Kris to eat noodles; not BBQ sauce, not fresh vegetables, nothing. When Tommy tries adding strawberries, Kris picks the berries out very carefully, then kicks the bowl over.

Adam takes him to the local shrine where a _Kirin_ is pacing solemnly around the bell with a priest following respectfully behind her. She's slim, a pale ocean blue and has a horn that looks like it's made out of coral. She and Kris hate each other on sight and Adam and the priest have to break up the resulting scuffle. Kris, Adam is secretly proud to see, fights _dirty_ , using his tail to trip the _Kirin_ up and stomping on her mane so it's all skewed and tangled with twigs.

The priest waves away Adam's apology and says something that sounds cheerful. Adam's five words of Japanese are all sushi-centric so he just smiles, nods and steers Kris away. The Japanese _Kirin_ pretty much all live in Temples since the end of the Second World War when the Emperor's blessings were released.

The noodle thing is a problem because there's not really a lot else for a unicorn to eat in Japan. At least, not in the parts of Japan that Adam is staying in. They try feeding him rice but Kris begins to look like a _Quilin_ after two bags. Adam resorts to feeding him all the fresh fruit he can beg, borrow or buy but Kris still loses at least a stone over the two weeks they're in Japan.

Adam is looking a lot slimmer himself; running around trying to find food for a finicky unicorn is hard work. Kris' likes and dislikes are rapidly being set in stone and most of the interesting ethnic foods that Adam gets offered aren't vegetarian. They have a two night stopover in Seoul and Adam comes back from a signing event the night after the concert to find Tommy heading out of the hotel.

"Where are you off to, Tommy-Joe?" Adam calls. He's in a good mood, working out the cramp from signing too many autographs.

Tommy looks shifty. "Just out."

"Getting laid before we hit Australia?" Adam teases. Tommy looks confused then realization dawns.

"Oh! Oh, uh, yeah?"

"That was the most unconvincing answer I've ever heard," Adam's eyes narrow. "Wait, weren't you supposed to be watching Kris?"

"I was- _am_ ," Tommy corrects and Adam's inner paranoia ratchets up.

"Tommy?" He keeps his voice calm with an effort. "What did you do to my unicorn?"

It takes another five minutes before Tommy confesses. The hotel offers small packets of complementary chocolate in a variety of flavors to guests. Tommy reluctantly admits that "we" - which is Tommy speak for 'the band and dancers' - fed six or seven packets to Kris. "-and uh, um..."

"And?" Adam asks sweetly.

"And then we noticed that they were, uh, well, that they weren't chocolate pieces," Tommy gulps and looks down at his boots.

"What were they?" Adam forces the sweet tone past clenched teeth.

"Chocolate coated coffee beans?" Tommy quails backwards from the murder in Adam's eyes.

"YOU FED MY UNICORN _COFFEE_!?!" Adam explodes.

"It was an accident!"

"Where is he!?" Adam turns to storm into the hotel.

"Um," Tommy says in a very small voice. "We, we aren't exactly sure..."

Adam takes a deep breath and counts to ten, then to a hundred. When he is quite sure that he isn't actually going to murder his bassist right here in full view of God, the paparazzi and the greater public, he opens his eyes.

"You fed him six packets of coffee beans and then you _lost him_!!?!!"

"It was an accident!"

"Okay," Adam takes another deep breath. "Okay. Right. We are going to find Kris. We are going to make sure Kris is okay. Then I am going to kill you all. Slowly and painfully. No, then I am going to let Lanie kill you."

Tommy fidgets and Adam spins on his heel and goes right back out the hotel door. Tommy follows Adam out into the bustling city. Over the next nine hours, Tommy and the rest of the band get intimately acquainted with Adam's inner bitch. Kris is nearly impossible to find.

They look in all the parks but there's no suspiciously new growth. They check all the American-style restaurants to see if any are missing their BBQ sauce. Adam checks various shops offering plaid clothes but no-one has seen a tiny gold unicorn. They finally find him in the Olympic Park, bouncing through the fountains and sending up rainbows. There are some tourists and local people dancing and loving the light show. One lady with a camera that is thankfully soaked tells Adam that she thought the rainbow fountain was in Banpo.

Adam smiles vaguely, then grabs Kris who is soaking wet and giddy and leaves Jeff to handle the police. Jeff spins some lame ass excuse about a publicity event and they all escape back to the hotel, just in time to check out.

Adam confiscates the rucksack and revokes the entire band's unicorn privileges for a week. Then, just because he can, he writes an email to Brad about what happened. Brad has a cellphone, all the numbers of everyone involved and a small army of minions that he isn't afraid to use.

They stop in Indonesia to see the dragons in a carefully-planned photo-op. Adam's never seen an Asian dragon before and he's struck by how serpentine they are. There are five dragons in the sanctuary when Adam, with Lanie and Kris in tow, comes to visit. They're huge. The smallest dragon is muddy green/blue and only ten feet long while Kong, the biggest dragon in Indonesia is thirty feet of rippling muscle under bright red scales.

The guide is a small worried woman who tells them repeatedly to keep a respectful distance from the dragons. Unicorns like humans, she says, but dragons don't. They are perfectly trustworthy with people they know but attacks on strangers are the main cause of dragon-related deaths.

The photography session takes five hours, only ninety minutes of which is the photographer actually taking pictures. The other three and a half hours are spent finding a place where they can see the dragons but Adam isn't in danger of being gobbled up. Sanctuary attendants hover the whole way through the shoot, alert to every shift in the dragon's behavior.

Adam is never in any danger once the cameras go off. Kris, fluffed up and making a weird grunting sound that Adam's never heard before, sticks close to his side. Kong, massive and terrifying, sniffs at Adam once and nearly gets his nose skewered by an indignant unicorn. Kong blows a cloud of smoke in a snort and backs off, still watching Adam with an almost quizzical.

Kris stays close until they're well out of the sanctuary, watching the dragons over his shoulder the whole way out. Again, Adam notices that none of the photographers paid any attention to Kris. There are some unicorns in the sanctuary but they're all jade and silver. Kris stuck out like a sore thumb but no-one seemed to notice.

The last country on the tour is Australia. There are just two shows but they're on opposite sides of the country. It's going to be two weeks of solid travel and Lanie comes up with a list of the million and one deadly plants and creatures that Australia can throw at the newcomers.

Monte takes one look at the list, then looks at Kris. "He's going to _die_."

"What?" Adam says, distracted by the text message from Brad with the latest donation figures for SUN.

"Kris," Monte rereads the list. "There are like eight hundred things on this list that could kill him. If we let him off the bus, he's going to DIE."

Adam reads the list and is forced to agree. Australian spiders come in various shades of pants-wettingly terrifying and lethal and there are dozens of things that will kill Kris just because he happens to be in the area.

"We need to get him a leash," LP chimes in and Tommy nods.

It's a good idea in theory. In practice, Kris _hates_ the leash. Lanie gets him this kickass harness in black and silver that's designed not to choke him. The first time Adam puts it on, Kris kicks him and nearly breaks his nose. If anyone tries to walk him on the extendable leash, Kris either digs his heels in and refuses point-blank to budge or he ties them up with the leash and drags them off their feet. If Kris has to go out with the harness, he either drags whatever poor bastard is out with him around like he's a mini-jet-pack or he sulks, loudly along behind them.

In his less subtle approach to vengeance, Kris pees on _everything_. Adam's bus, Tommy's bass, LP's drums, the dancers' boots; anything that Kris can reach gets peed on at least once. The synthetic fabrics are mostly fine after a wash but Adam's favorite silk shirt becomes a thicket of mulberry bushes and the cotton t-shirts turn to dandelion seeds. What he can't pee on, Kris kicks holes in or chews up. Adam loses sixteen bottles of nail varnish to one particularly vicious tantrum. Kris tries to chew off the harness a hundred times a day but Lanie's ninja-general leash skills make it impossible.

The two weeks in Australia are hell on earth; Kris sulking massively while the entire tour locks up everything they own in the vain hope Kris won't be able to pee on it. Jeff flies back to the States after Kris pees on his iPhone. Sandy cries for hours when Kris chews a hole in her new designer handbag. Adam's plaintive ' _Whaddya want from Me_ ' becomes the fans' favorite interpretation of the song and he gets a load of questions about it during interviews.

He comes up with a more media-friendly explanation than "My unicorn is pouting and peeing on everything no matter how much I ask him to stop."

Even Adam's 'garden' dreams are prickly and involve chasing his somebody through thistles and nettles. Adam is beyond relieved when they finally get on the plane in Brisbane and start the long flight home.

LA seems a lot smaller than Adam remembers it. His last concert is that night in the Music Box and he's aware of a pang of regret. It was a kickass tour, unreal and unforgettable. Even if his next album tanks and he winds up living in his mom's basement, Adam thinks, he's going to treasure the memory of his time on tour.

He's looking for the car that's going to take him home when Lanie comes running up. "Adam! There you are! I thought I'd missed you."

"What's up?" Adam asks, leaning on his luggage cart. Kris' rucksack is on top, moving around as Kris tries to find a comfortable way to lie on Adam's suitcases.

"Listen, there's been a problem with your apartment," Lanie starts.

"What sort of a problem?"

"A stalker problem," Lanie admits, mouth twisting down like she sucked on a lemon. "It's just not secure. The good news is that Jeff's sorted out a new house for you."

"A _house_?" Adam sputters. "I can't afford a mortgage!"

"You've sold like ten million records in the last month," Lanie says unsympathetically. "You can afford a dozen houses."

"But-" Adam protests. He still has problems remembering that.

"Listen, he got the house through the company, okay? It'll be private, quiet and Jeff got a really good decorating firm in. I haven't seen what they've come up with but you can totally change the decor if you need to," Lanie rolls right over his protests. "And it'll be safer and no-one is going to come crashing in and discover Kris, okay?"

"I guess," Adam grumps, reaching out to pat Kris through the rucksack's slippery fabric. "Ready to go home, baby?"

Kris' answering chirrup is emphatic and Adam laughs.

"There's a car waiting outside," Lanie tells him. "And your friends have the address. They were planning a welcome-home dinner with Martina."

"Awesome," Adam says.

He lets Kris out of the rucksack as soon as they're in the car. Kris rolls around on the seat, winding up with all four legs in the air in the middle of a cloud of glitter. Adam can't resist rubbing his belly and Kris kicks lightly against his arm.

"One more show," Adam says wistfully.

Kris rubs his cheek against Adam's hand and trills. Adam pats him and takes out his phone to call Brad.

"Hey," Brad's voice is terse. "Where are you?"

"About ten minutes out, according to the driver," Adam says, a little surprised. "We just passed a Chevy dealership."

"Fuck," Brad sighs. "Listen, call me when you're at the gate okay?"

"Okay," Adam scratches under Kris' cheek and gets nosed in the wrist. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah," Brad growls. "Something's wrong but you're going to have to see this shit to believe it. Who picked this house for you?"

"Jeff, I think," Adam frowns. "You're freaking me out here, Brad."

"I should have fucking known," Brad snarls. "I'mma skin that boy. Fucking jackass Frat Boy!"

Adam's eyebrows shoot up. Brad keeps his Texan in check most of the time. If he's slipping back into the good ol' boy drawl, then he's really pissed. Kris pokes his nose up under Adam's chin as Brad rants about brands and ass-kicking.

"We're coming up to the corner, I think," Adam says and Brad grunts and hangs up. Adam looks at his phone then down at Kris. "We're going to need to find a camcorder. Your first exposure to the wrath of Brad needs to be documented for all time."

Kris snorts, deeply skeptical and burrows in against Adam's chest for more scritches. Adam obliges because he's just a nice guy like that. Kris hums happily and the car pulls in through metal gates that look like they belong in front of the White House. Adam gets ready to get out but the car's still going and how long is this driveway anyway?

Adam rolls down the window, not all the way because Kris _will_ jump out if the window's open all the way. He gets it halfway down, hanging onto Kris who is trying to launch himself at the window like a guided missile, just in time to see the last curve of the driveway slide past.

"That's not a house," Adam says blankly, staring up at the massive facade of a mansion that seems to stretch all the way up to the sky. There are stars that look to be caught on the roof. Adam's seen smaller _towns_ than this house! It's big enough to hold a concert in and Adam actually feels his jaw drop. Kris has his head stuck out the window, sniffing enthusiastically at the air as Adam keeps hold of him. Kris is still halfway out of the window by the time the car pulls up and Adam finally gets the door open.

Kris leaps out of the car and runs rings around the fake Grecian urns like the demented little sparkler that he is. He's actually leaving a glittering trail through the warm evening air and his excited chirrups echo back from the shadows. Adam steps out and the house looks even bigger as he hesitates on the steps, just staring.

The front doors bang open and Brad comes storming out like the most fabulous wrath of God with most of SUN's founding members trailing behind him. Adam might be just a little bitter that even after a sold-out, global stadium tour, Brad _still_ has a bigger entourage. Kris comes charging over to jump into Brad's arms. Brad's thunderous expression lasts maybe two seconds before he's cuddling Kris who is chirruping excitedly at him and nuzzling his cheek.

Brad kisses Kris' cheek and fusses over his mane and the "deplorable" condition of his hooves.

"So I didn't have time to give him his daily manicure," Adam drawls. "That's not a reason not to welcome me back, fucker."

"Poor fashion decisions are totally grounds for being ostracized," Brad sniffs. Kris twists around to whicker anxiously at him and Brad folds like a cheap napkin; reluctantly and utterly graceless. "Fine! Welcome home. Asshole."

Kris bounces out of his arms, clearly not in the least fooled by Brad's snark and Brad pulls Adam into a hug. Adam oofs because, yeah, he also keeps forgetting that for such a wiry little fucker, Brad is _strong_.

"Welcome home," Brad whispers in his ear and Adam's ribs creak under the pressure. He hugs Brad back and sees Scarlett expertly herding Kris away from the open front door over Brad's shoulder.

"Why is Scarlett not letting Kris into the house?" Adam asks quietly.

Brad's eyes spark with fury and he scowls. "You'll see in a minute. Go say hi to everyone first."

Adam is hugged, clapped on the back and congratulated by what feels like a hundred people. They're all his friends, Adam recognizes them all and loves them for the fierce, awesome people they are but he's never really gotten used to how many of them there are. He might actually need the ostentatious and huge house if he's ever going to host a party. It's a scary thought.

"Kris?" Alisan waves a peach at him and gets Kris' undivided attention. "Come on, sweetheart, I want to show you the fruit gardens."

Kris looks back at Adam, then more urgently at the peach. He's jigging around from hoof to hoof and Adam smiles. "Go with Alisan, Kris. I'm going to put the bags in the house and I'll follow you out, all right?"

Relieved, Kris follows Alisan back along the drive towards the back of the house. The crunch of gravel under Kris' hooves sounds psychedelic and he stops to sniff contemptuously at one of the over-manicured roses. Alisan calls him and Kris bites off one of the flowers and clatters happily after her. There's is a delighted chirrup and a loud splash about half a minute later.

"I think he's found the pool," Brad deadpans. Adam sighs. He really hopes that this house has tiled floors. Wet unicorn glitter is a bitch to get out of carpets. "Come on, Cassidy's got a bucket for after you see this."

"See what?" Adam asks but Brad is already pulling him into the hallway.

The first thing Adam sees are the light fixtures. They look like cheap pseudo-Victorian kitsch with a weird base. Brad doesn't let him look around much, shooing him up the wide stairs. Upstairs, everything's okay and Adam wonders what Brad's getting so worked up about. The house's guest rooms are all generic bland and most of the bathrooms look like they were picked out of a catalog. It's not what Adam would have picked but it's not _bad_ , certainly nothing to set Brad off like that.

Coming back down the stairs, Adam looks a little closer at the light fixtures. Brad is hovering by his shoulder as Adam tilts his head. There's something-something familiar about the way the crystal flares out into a curve. There's something _really_ familiar about those crystal rods. Back in Britain, the Royal Reeves had shown him the vet's institute and a lot of x-rays of unicorns. The fetlock joints of a unicorn are _very_ distinctive. Adam's stomach is stirring, bile rising up along the back of his throat.

"What. The. _FUCK_?!"

"Brace yourself, sweets," Brad says grimly. "It gets worse."

"HOW COULD IT GET **WORSE**!?" Adam demands, bordering on hysterical.

It actually gets a lot worse.

Adam's faith in humanity plummets through the center of the earth as he shoves open the door to the main room and nearly steps on a unicorn skin rug spread out just inside the door. The light fixtures were bad but Adam nearly vomits as the dull dusty glitter flakes off. He skitters backwards because he's going to puke right here if any of that touches him. He crashes into the door-frame hard enough that it knocks the air out of his lungs.

He grabs for the door to steady himself and sees a flicker of movement reflected from across the room. Adam looks up and sees the blur of his own wide eyes in the glass case that dominates the center of the room. The stuffed unicorn inside was probably only half-grown, horn tarnished and dull and mane rooted in clumps of coarse hair. The glassy eyes look real for all of a second before it registers that they're too big and placed wrong. The dead unicorn is posed with its head tilted and Adam sees Kris standing there for a second as he struggles to breathe as his throat locks up.

Brad scrambles out of his way. Adam only makes it to the bathroom because he keeps both hands clamped over his mouth. He's sick three times, choking and retching over the toilet, before he can even think about anything but those dead fake eyes. Just having _that_ in his house makes Adam want to burn the whole house down. Scarlett has a bottle of vodka waiting when he comes out from the downstairs bathroom.

"Give me my phone," Adam demands after he's gargled half a bottle of Grey Goose. He hits speed dial #3 and doesn't let Lanie get past "What th-" before he's snarling over her. "Find Jeff and fucking fire him."

"I- _what_? Adam, what are you-?"

"Fire Jeff," Adam insists. "No reference, no kudos for his extra-curriculars. Fired. Gone. Then you are going to find me an interior designer-"

"-at half ten at night? Can't this wait until the morn-?"

"- _tonight_ ," Adam growls. "And I want this fucking nightmare of a decor gone before Kris and I get back from the hotel you're going to book for us tonight tomorrow morning, or I'm firing everyone that was within ten miles of this disaster."

Lanie wisely doesn't say anything; Adam's eyes keep sliding to the wispy ghost-white unicorn with dead marbles for eyes in the glass case. He tries not to imagine Kris in a case like that, the gold bleeding out of his coat and his throat closes as he gags.

"Fired," Adam grates around the taste of bile.

"...okay," Lanie says after a pause. "Rachel's got you a booking at the Hilton. A whole suite. Just don't ask how much it's costing."

"Take it out of Jeff's severance," Adam growls. He hangs up on her and runs upstairs to grab his overnight bag and make-up. He keeps his eyes closed as he passes the light fixtures because he can't even think about this or he's going to throw up again.

When he stumbles back out, Kris is coming around the side of the house, soaked to the skin. He looks tiny with his coat plastered flat, legs impossibly slender and stretching up to meet the crest of his back. He's munching happily on something - probably the peach Alisan was teasing him with. He stops chewing as he looks up at Adam and his ears prick forward then back. Kris hurries over to paw at Adam's leg, chirruping anxiously. He hops up on his hind-legs, neck stretched up to sniff at Adam.

Adam hugs him, feeling Kris' racing heartbeat and Kris noses against his cheek. Adam's going to need a wire brush to get the glitter off but right now, he doesn't care if Kris' glitter makes a six inch thick shell because it means Kris is _alive_ and here and safe.

When the car turns up, it's not one of the rent-a-sedan that the studio normally uses. It's a battered Chevy with LP behind the wheel. He doesn't say much and he doesn't bat an eye when Adam settles into the backseat with a lapful of Kris. He even handles the check-in for Adam and leaves with only a laconic "See you in the morning."

The Hilton suite turns out to be a pocket apartment. The kitchen is all white marble and terrifyingly high tech appliances but even if Adam suspects the fridge is smarter than him, it's clean and bland and there are no dead unicorns. Adam has Kris' blanket spread out on the bed as Kris eats the complimentary mints (paper and all) and the artificial flowers which he promptly spits out into the toilet, pulling a disgusted face that makes Adam laugh.

Adam locks all four of the locks on the door and puts the chain on. He closes all the windows and makes sure all the catches are solid. Kris, safely curled up on his glitter-encrusted blanket, watches Adam with too-serious dark eyes. Adam pets him absently as he paces. He wants to call Lanie and get Jeff arrested or call Brad and talk violent retribution on Jeff's so-called 'decorators'.

He's passing Kris for the fifth or sixth time when his sleeve snags on something. Adam can't tug it free and he looks down. Kris has the cuff of Adam's shirt in his teeth and a stubborn glint in his eyes. Adam tugs at his sleeve but, despite the fact that he must outweigh Kris twenty times over, Kris' butt goes down and Adam isn't moving. He yanks on Adam's sleeve and there's an ominous ripping sound.

Adam tugs once more but Kris narrows his eyes and Adam concedes gracefully. He sits down on the edge of the bed. Kris grunts disapprovingly and lets go of Adam's sleeve. Before Adam can escape, Kris scoots over to annex his lap. Kris settles himself comfortably so Adam can't even get hold of him to lift him out of the way.

"You-you're not a _cat_ ," Adam complains. Kris hums a few bars of 'What's new, pussycat'. "Smartass."

Kris rolls over, rubbing glitter into Adam's jeans and Adam sighs. "All right, all right. I'm coming to bed. Happy?"

'Yes' Kris writes in big gold letters.

Adam expects to have problems getting to sleep but the jet-lag and the stress hit like lead-filled sandbags and he's asleep within seconds of his head touching the pillow. He's dreading the nightmares of glass cases and the stink of Formaldehyde but he opens his eyes to find the familiar tropical garden. It's evening, lazy warm and the sun's light casts dappled patterns through the peach trees.

He's not alone, his somebody is there and Adam can feel him, leaning into Adam's side. Adam peers down at him - his somebody is small enough that he fits under Adam's arm and his head rests against Adam's heart - but the details are blurred in an impressionistic swirl of colors. Adam hugs him a little tighter and his somebody murmurs wordlessly and snuggles closer.

Adam hesitates for a long second before he leans down to press their lips together. His somebody tastes of honey and apples and his eyes open wide when Adam drags his tongue across the line of his lips. Adam sits back, suddenly afraid that he's gotten it wrong and his somebody blinks, pink lips forming an 'o' that is just unfairly hot. Adam can feel the curl of heat even as his stomach clenches.

"Oh," his somebody says again. "Oh, that's-that's _nice_!"

He sounds so surprised that Adam laughs and gets elbowed. His somebody huffs and twists away a little. Adam cuddles him closer and his somebody melts against him again. They cuddle while thrushes sing in the bushes.

"But," his somebody says reluctantly. "I don't think-I mean, I liked it but I don't think we should." Adam opens his mouth to protest. "Not yet. It's, it's going to be more complicated if we do."

"Not yet," Adam repeats the important part of that. "But soon?"

"Soon," his somebody leans up, lips brushing along Adam's cheek. "I promise. You won't have to wait much longer."

Adam settles back, cuddling his somebody closer and breathes deep and peaceful. They lie on the grass together, drowsing in the heat of the evening with the smell of fresh peach trees and grass.

The next morning, Adam's entire social circle show up ungodly early and bang on the door until Adam gets up and lets them in. Lanie at least thinks to bring coffee. Adam is going to spare her. The rest of the loud obnoxiously awake people in the room are going to die as soon as Adam can string more than two thoughts together. The suite almost doesn't fit everyone - Tommy and Brad have to share the rug with Kris who is being uncharacteristically giddy with the crowd of people.

Brad and Cassidy have sourced a dozen decorators who are more than happy to take the massive paycheck and promise to have the house 'just the way' Adam likes it. Adam can't get more than lukewarm at the idea; even with all those nightmarish fixtures ripped out, he's never going to be able to go through the front door without remembering they were there. Kris is snuffling curiously at some of the concept sketches.

"And this is the fruit bowl," Cassidy, the traitor, is telling Kris. "It's going to be bigger than you."

"I do not need a style intervention right now," Adam sulks and Kris comes bounding back over to burrow up under Adam's arm and wiggle in behind him on the armchair. Adam gets poked by Kris' horn a few times but scratches his ears anyway. Kris chirrups happily and snuggles closer. "I just need a house with a bed, a coffee machine and room for my clothes that doesn't have-"

He breaks off when Kris tips his head questioningly at him. Kris blinks big dark eyes and Adam chickens out completely. He's still not sure how much of what they say Kris actually _understands_ and last night was a confused and jumbled mess of anger and puke. Adam fluffs up Kris' forelock and Kris blinks again. He has ridiculously long eyelashes, Adam thinks. Kris could be a mascara model if you overlooked the fact that he never used the product.

"Adam," Brad sighs dramatically from the floor. "Look, Frat-boy is fired, you will have the most fabulous and unicorn-friendly house in the country by the weekend at the latest and you still have your big finale to get ready for. So stop being a pissy little diva and come spend the day at the spa like a good little rockstar."

"I hate you," Adam says petulantly, combing his fingers through Kris' mane. "And spas are for after tour."

Brad and Lanie exchange glances and Adam bristles at them. Kris bristles in sympathy but it's more stupidly cute than intimidating. Unicorns really aren't good for bad moods. Adam stops to consider that point and Kris decides bristling is much less fun than rolling into Adam's lap in a blatant bid for belly rubs. Adam rubs Kris' belly because he's not stupid and glares at them both.

The belly-rubs detract somewhat from the glare. Lanie's lips twitch like she's fighting back a smile. Brad is immune to Adam's glares anyway and just rolls his eyes. "Please, spas are for whenever you don't want to get arrested for whatever psycho shit you'll pull if your stress levels get any higher. There is an entire apartment of people to watch Kris so don't even try that with me."

It is an entirely logical point but even with the entire membership of SUN and his tour crew watching Kris, _Adam_ wouldn't be watching him. After last night, Adam can't take his eyes off Kris without seeing Kris in that damn case with dead glass eyes. He spreads his hand out so he can feel Kris' heart beating against his palm.

Brad is still a force of nature so Adam doesn't actually get to say no. The spa is in the hotel, Brad points out so Adam is guaranteed to get to Kris in less than five minutes _if_ there's an emergency. Then he threatens to call Adam's mom and dad and give Neil creative control over the redecorating.

Adam gives in eventually and lets Brad drag him downstairs to be primped and prettied up. He does keep his iPhone the whole way through over every protest. When Brad tries to take it off him one time too many, Adam bites him. Tommy texts periodic updates and Adam is mostly sane by the time he gets his last face-mask peeled off and the cars arrive to take them to sound check.

Adam smuggles Kris into the car himself, hurrying him across the concrete floor of the hotel's basement parking lot and wincing at the chime of Kris' hooves echoing around them. He doesn't talk to any of the others for the whole trip. Lanie comes along too, with the band crowded in to provide cover when Adam passes through the swirl of fans and photographers. Adam forces a smile and half-waves, power-walking for the safety of the security guards at the stage door.

Rachel is finishing up backstage when Adam arrives. She kneels down to hug Kris tightly and wobbles when she stands up. Adam steadies her and Rachel yawns. "Your make-up is in the dressing room, all the costumes are on the rack and I've had the violet and gold shirt dry-cleaned, there is a fresh crate of water-bottles beside the stage and I am going to call a cab, pick up the biggest Uncle Arthur's pizza with cookies I can find and sleep for a week. I am officially done and momma's got some serious vacation time in the bank."

"You could look a little less happy to be abandoning me," Adam laughs and hugs her. "Don't lie, you're going to miss me."

"Like hell," Rachel grins unrepentantly. "You get to go shopping for your own organic crap." Kris bumps against her knee and she bends down to ruffle his mane. "You, baby? You I'm going to miss for the three glorious days I am spending with my DVD collection."

Kris chirrups and dances around her as the rest of the band crowd in to hug her and offer suggestions. Adam has to cover Kris' ears when Scarlett offers some frank advice about how Rachel could unwind. Kris' ears flick irritably against Adam's palms and he tosses his head and pouts at Adam.

"You are not allowed to corrupt my unicorn," Adam insists, making a huge show of shooing Rachel out the door. "Go forth, debauch the innocent-"

"-You really think there are any innocents left in LA county?" Rachel grins at him, leaning into Tommy who's going a little pink. " _Aside_ from your unicorn?"

"OUT," Adam orders and hugs her one last time. "Away with you!"

Rachel blows him a kiss and Tommy helps her out. Adam goes out to do the sound-check, free-styling through some songs that Kris likes. Kris follows him out onto stage and the entire stage crew comes by to fuss over them as Adam sings through 'Ring of Fire'. Scarlett teaches Kris to moonwalk as Adam sings 'Smooth Criminal'. Kris gets the idea almost immediately but his excited tail flourishes crack Adam up halfway through 'So They Came Into The Outway' and the sound-techs shout good-natured abuse at them both.

The pre-show prep flows easily and everyone's happy and enthusiastic. Terence paints Kris' lips with one of the deep purple lip gloss that Adam picked up in Japan and Scarlett fits him with the fetlock-sized bell bangles that jingle with every step he takes. Kris is instantly enchanted, dancing across the floor. The dance step that seems to get the most noise is something like the can-can. So Kris gleefully can-cans across the floor while Adam and the band laugh their asses off.

Adam gives an impromptu pep talk just before the house lights go down, with everyone crowded into the narrow corridor outside the green room. Kris is threading excitedly through the crowd and it is testament to infinite adaptability of humans that he only catches two people with his horn. Everyone else sidesteps him automatically, patting him as he passes. Adam has to balance precariously on a couple of empty beer barrels and yell to be heard over the murmur of sound.

"Guys! Hey, c'mon _guys_!" Adam cups his hands around his mouth. "It's our last night-"

"-On this tour!" Someone yells back and there's a cheer.

"Sweetie, if you think I am even singing the shower for at least a month after tonight, you have been reading too many of Lanie's press releases," Adam plants a hand on his hip and everyone laughs. "Seriously, guys, this has been...one hell of a ride. It's been wonderful, fantastic and I've loved all-well, okay, the Indian hot-sauce incident, I didn't like-" there's another burst of laughter that gets louder when Kris kicks sheepishly at the ground and looks apologetic. "-but it's been so cool. Thank you all for making this so kickass and thank you to those of you who were smart enough to not feed the unicorn coffee."

There's more laughter as Tommy flips him off and everyone cheers. Adam beams around at everyone, feeling so much love for these people and an awestruck sense of achievement. "So, as much as I hate to ask, there's one last thing I want you to do for me."

"You are just going to have to man up and wax your own chest," Scarlett shouts and Adam sticks his tongue out at her as everyone laughs again.

"Love you too, bitch," Adam turns back to the rest of the crew. "Seriously, guys. We've done this a hundred times but, well, you know me. I wanna go out with a _bang_.

There's more laughter but the dancers start a 'we will rock you' chant and everyone's stomping and clapping and there's a build of such energy and emotion that Adam punches the air and shouts. Kris is drumming his hooves to the beat and Adam sweeps him up in a last minute hug. Sandy is waiting, lips pursed and Adam hands Kris off to her before he and his band storm the stage.

The energy of the last night is unreal. Adam is laughing from two seconds in and the music flows like the tides, rippling through the crowd. Everyone is _on_ , Monte's playing like Jimi Hendrix, the guitar like a living thing in his hands. LP's drums pulse through everyone, giving the mass of humanity a shared heartbeat. The dancers are like living music, alien and beautiful in the flickering lights and Adam feels like God Almighty. The crowd hangs on everything he says, reacting like they're linked into his every thought.

Adam feels invincible and when he goes back out for the third encore, the crowd is still borderline hysterical and screaming like the lights just went up for the first time. There are press in front of the stage, photographers risking their necks in the swirl of the crowd as the buildup to the very last song shudders through the overheated air like a volcano building up to an eruption.

Adam is in the very middle of the stage when the lights come up. He's blinded for one crucial second. It will still feel like something he should have seen; something he should have _stopped_.

Kris _glows_ under the black lights. The footlights make the ever-present glitter flare up into a comet's tail of sparkling light as he bounds across the stage. The crowd sees him before Adam does and the screams and cheering rise to fever pitch. The photographers start taking photos so fast that the flashes from the cameras run into one high-intensity flare of light.

The song is already starting and Adam is swept up. He can't stop even as Monte hits a wrong note. The show must go on and the beat's already thrumming through the hysteria. Adam comes in on his cue because his conscious mind has shut the fuck down.

"I wanna start a revolution-"

Kris, gleeful little music hedonist that he is, matches his prowl across the stage. When Adam sidesteps as the verse gathers momentum, Kris slips into the dancers' space, weaving himself through the routine like a shining gold strand. Adam's memory blanks out and he goes through the song on auto-pilot. The crowd is a hurricane of emotion, dragging him into the performance before he can start to panic.

The lights go off at the last "Show me what you're working with" but Kris is still shining, a tiny golden star in the crowded darkness and Adam sweeps him up in a hug. The dancers are standing around him. Adam hears their panting breaths and smells the sweat as they crowd closer. Tommy is petting Kris' forelock and cursing in a soft desperate stream of sound. Monte is breathing by Adam's shoulder, confused gulps of air. Kris is hot in Adam's arms, glowing and wriggling. Around them, the screaming and the camera flashes go on and on and on.

"Adam," Lanie's voice comes over his earpiece. "You need to get off the stage right now."

Adam hugs Kris tighter and stumbles blindly off stage. It's only because his band and dancers are the most awesome people on planet that Adam doesn't trip and kill himself. He's still in shock and hanging onto Kris as the only thing that makes sense. He staggers into the wings.

Lanie is furious; Adam can practically feel the incandescent rage and Kris recoils, pressing back against his chest and Adam cuddles him automatically. She has her phone clutched in one hand and she's glaring at Sandy. Sandy is crying, the pitiful 'pity-me' sobs that drain Adam's will to live. He's bracing himself for Sandy's latest problem when he realizes that George and Tank from security are towering up behind her.

"What's going on?" Adam asks because Kris is starting to vibrate with second-hand tension and there's something he's missing here. Kris just came out on stage in front of fifteen thousand people and half the tabloids on the West Coast. What the fuck could be more important than that?

"Sandra has an apology she wants to make," and Adam has never hear Lanie sound like that before. Her tone is arctic-cold and sharp enough to draw blood. "Don't you, Sandra?"

Sandy snuffles and sobs and Lanie glares at her. Adam blinks and Kris makes an unhappy sound. Adam has no clue what she's trying to say and Lanie's patience snaps after nearly a minute.

"Just shut up!" Everyone jumps, even George and Tank and Kris fluffs up, eyes wide. Adam looks back at Lanie.

"She let Kris out," Lanie grates the words out through clenched teeth. "Deliberately. She let him out of the dressing room and brought him up to the wings."

Adam feels his heat stop. Kris would follow Sandy and sure, they've all told him that he has to be sneaky and quiet but Kris has never really seemed to understand _why_. That close to the stage - to the music - and Kris wouldn't stop to think. Sandy knows that. "What the fu-?"

"She's been fucking Jeff," Lanie's voice is flat but there's a seething undertone that promises murder. "Apparently he's not happy that you fired him."

"Fuck," Adam shakes his head, staring at Sandy like she's going to have some incredible reason that could explain this. Sandy starts to cry again and Lanie's hand twitches like she's fighting the urge to slap her. "Just-just get her the fuck out of here."

Lanie nods at George and Tank and they hustle Sandy away. Adam can't even look at her. Lanie breathes out and turns to him. "Adam-"

" _What?_ " Adam snaps. He can't think past the shock and the disbelief and he needs a minute to put his worldview back together.

"The police are here," Lanie says softly, looking down at Kris. "And they're not alone."

"Homeland Security?" Adam has to force the words out. His muscles have locked in place and he's clutching Kris so tightly that he can feel Kris' sides pushing against his arms as he breathes.

"They didn't say," Lanie says gently. "I have three calls into Legal. Your lawyer will be here as soon as he can but-"

"But?"

"They want Kris," Lanie is biting her lower lip and Adam's breath strangles in his throat. "They've got some kind of warrant. I don't know but it-it looks legal."

 _It would_ , Adam thinks in the frozen moment as his world starts to splinter. He can't-he's shaking with the post-concert crash and shock has paralyzed his mind. All he can do is cling onto Kris and shake.

It takes five minutes for his life to fall apart.

He's still shaking when the agents show up, dark professional suits moving purposefully through the crowd of police uniforms. One of them has a nylon horse halter that looks brand new and a heavy length of rope. What happens next, Adam will remember in his nightmares for years to come.

Adam still has Kris in his arms and the lead agent - a older white guy with scowl-lines creasing his face and the beginnings of a beer belly pushing out over his belt - reaches for Kris. Kris tries to twist away and the agent grabs his mane and _pulls_.

Kris screams, a shrill discord that jolts Adam into action.

Punching a federal agent in the face with what is probably at least three pounds of silver on his fingers isn't the stupidest thing Adam's done. It's probably in the top ten though. The agent goes down like a tree, straight over backwards. Kris slithers to the ground as Adam pulls his fist back.

He hears the buzz of the tazer charging and moves before he can think. He pushes Kris sideways and the tazer hits him squarely in the side. It _hurts_. Adam's nervous system lights up like a tacky holiday display and his muscles lock rigid. He loses his balance and falls. He sees the wall, then his head hits and darkness crashes down.

His dream is blurred, fragmented pieces that Adam can't string together. The garden is devastated, the peach trees just barren skeletons against a gray sky. The wind is howling and Adam keeps getting blown out of the dream. His somebody is there but Adam can't find him. He can't move fast enough to get through the garden before the winds tear him away and fling him into the darkness.

He wakes up in a cell, still wearing his sweaty concert clothes, with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his head pounding. Shivering cramps run through his side and Adam is half-expecting to see electricity crackling between the studs on his bracelets. He gags around the foul taste in his mouth and the only thing that keeps him from throwing up is his own stupid stubborn pride.

The cell is bare, one bunk, one stainless steel toilet and three blank off-white walls lit by a fluorescent bulb. The bars block off a shadowy, claustrophobic corridor and there are other people nearby, voices hazy and indistinct. Adam sits on the bed with his hands loosely clasped between his knees and forces his mind blank. He can't get out of the cell. He refuses to start shouting. He can't feel anything but the huge gaping hole where his feelings should be. All he can do is sit and stare at his glittering hands.

He's been awake for maybe fifteen minutes when his lawyer shows up, breathing fire and already talking threateningly in terms of lawsuits. She has fiery red hair and narrow-framed glasses and she is terrifying. The cops are giving her generous amounts of personal space and when she demands that they provide medical attention, five different cops immediately call 911 before an ambulance can be sorted out through the usual channels..

Adam catches her arm, desperate and clumsy. "Where's Kris?"

"Kris? Oh, that's the unicorn, isn't it?" The lawyer pats his elbow. Adam nods urgently. "Well, according to the police, he ran away. The agents have been searching for him but there's no sign of him. It's a public relations disaster."

Adam's breath catches in his throat. He could not give less of a fuck about the LAPD/Homeland Security's PR problems if he tried. Where is Kris? Is he going to be okay? His lawyer keeps talking about settlements and litigation. Adam doesn't say anything more, just keeps his head down and lets the paramedics check him over. They want to keep him overnight but the thought of more bare white walls makes Adam feel sick. He dregs up every scrap of acting ability he can muster and turns on all the charm he can manage. It takes so much effort that he feels the ache along his cheeks and across his eyelids from hold the bright media-ready expression in place. They let him go home or at least back to the hastily stripped mansion.

Brad is waiting when Adam stumbles up the door. Brad's makeup is sloppy, his shirt has a button missing and still, Adam clings to hope. Kris might have gone back to the apartment, Brad wasn't at the concert and he has Martina's number. If Kris went back-? If...if...

Brad's eyes are red and Adam doesn't need to ask. He just folds up there on the steps to the stupid house that he never really wanted. Brad tries to steady him, cushioning the fall as Adam's knees hit the marble with a crack. Adam doesn't even feel it, can't breathe past the lump of grief and loss as he howls into Brad's shoulder.

Adam's never had a nervous breakdown so he doesn't know for sure that's what happens next.

The shit-storm in the media is reportedly epic; Adam doesn't know because he doesn't read any of the papers Lanie or Rachel bring him and his laptop gathers dust in the barren living room. The stupid house turns out to be a perfect place to hide from the world. He catches whispers of the fall-out when Tommy and Brad stage one of their interventions. Adam refuses to engage; he never wanted this. He did _nothing_ wrong.

The garden dreams don't come back; sometimes Adam dreams of the peach trees, dried out and wind-torn but his somebody is gone. Adam eats when his mom threatens to come up from San Diego if he doesn't. He eats and drinks in small portions. He thinks he showers every day but he doesn't really care enough to keep track. He mopes around the stupid empty _huge_ house and hates everything.

Rachel arrives on the tenth day with three coffee cups in a cardboard tray in one hand and a tote bag with a woman's head and 'Calibella: Organic Make-Up Boutique' stenciled in red and black hooked over her elbow. She stands over Adam until he drinks two of the three cups of coffee and chases him into the shower.

"You are not to show your pasty ass out here until it is clean," Rachel orders him, shoving a towel and her tote bag at him. "Or so help me, I will drag you back in there and scrub you clean my damn self. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Adam closes the door behind him and leans on it because he doesn't entirely trust that she won't follow him in and supervise. Rachel's voice trails off into a mutter as she goes down the stairs and Adam relaxes. He doesn't have strong feelings about the shower but he trudges over to turn on the water. His t-shirt feels grimy but when Adam pulls it off the feel of grime lingers on his skin. His hair hangs in his eyes, lank and greasy.

Adam ducks under the spray of warm water and scrubs himself clean. He discovers that the tote bag is full of bottles and promising looking powders and a new Phillips electric razor still in the box at the bottom. It's the most gadget-y razor Adam has ever seen and he spends ten minutes just playing with the different settings and admiring the clover-like head with three spinning blades. He's not sure if it looks more like a high-tech space shuttle or a sex toy.

It's a shock when he actually goes to shave - he has a beard now and Brad's entire summer wardrobe would fit in the bags under his eyes. He looks haggard, eyes dark and red-rimmed and freckles visible under the pink of freshly scrubbed skin. He shaves and cleans up and thinks of the morning when Kris destroyed his bathroom and still sent him off looking his best. The sting of tears actually makes his eyes burn and Adam splashes cold water into his face and hangs onto the counter until he can meet his own eyes in the mirror again.

He has to apply his makeup twice because the first mascara isn't waterproof but when he straightens up the last time, he's Adam fucking Lambert again. There's comfort in that and safety behind the mask. Adam steps into his bedroom and goes for his wardrobe. His clothes are hanging up and he picks jeans with a silver unicorn done in sequins and a dark royal purple t-shirt. He doesn't bother putting on his shoes.

Rachel has been joined by Lanie, Brad, Scarlett and the band. They're sitting around the bland white counter with mis-matched cups of coffee. They all turn to look when Adam steps into the kitchen and there isn't a single dirty joke or insinuation.

"Are we staging an intervention?" Adam asks sweetly. Everyone looks at Lanie then at Brad and back to Adam. Whatever Brad or Lanie were going to say is forgotten when Lanie's phone rings. She glances down, rolls her eyes and Brad cranes his head to look at the display. His smile shows all his teeth and triggers a visceral reaction in Adam's lizard brain. That smile means cops and witness statements and Adam promising never to go back to the club if they'll just drop the charges.

When Brad smiles like that, Adam's 'fight or flight' reflexes come down solidly on 'FLIGHT'. He skirts the group, hand hesitating over the microwave popcorn before reaching for the coffee cup. He leans into Monte as Brad thumbs the green button to answer the phone on speaker. "Who's that?"

"Bieber's people," Monte says around a cracker. "Possibly the kid himself. They've been pushy as fuck."

"Bieber? What, as in _Justin_ Bieber?"

"That's the one," Monte murmurs then someone on the other end of the phone starts to talk and they both shut up.

"-just wish to speak to Mr Lambert," the voice is bland, the grinding smooth tone of a professional handler who smiles and says 'please', 'thank you' and whatever else they need to keep their cash cow mooing. "Given the circumstances and some of the recent _negative_ press-"

"You mean when your boy went on the air with Ryan Seacrest and told the entire E!News viewership that Adam was a unicorn pimp?"

Adam nearly chokes on his coffee and LP thumps him on the back, a little harder than Adam's poor ribs appreciate.

"Mr Bieber said no such th-" the handler is trying for outrage but Brad is unassailable and sneers at the concept of decorum.

"He said if having a unicorn around would improve his public image like that, he'd be on the phone to Adam to 'hook me up with a unicorn right now'," Brad's smiling again. Adam feels the rage like a bomb going off in the back of his mind, turning everything red and black. "Then he started talking about how he thinks his underage self would look 'groovy' - which hasn't been an unironic adjective since the nineties - on stage with Adam."

"-A joint concert would-" the handler tries but Brad is already sailing effortlessly over them, voice rising over their futile protests.

"Which is just not happening. If he learns to accept when people say 'no way in hell' and his balls drop sometime this century, I'm sure _Mr Lambert_ would be open to reconsidering," Brad drawls. "But tell your brat to take his 'experimentation phase' and shove it right up his ass. Jailbait is not the hot new look and Adam is never going to be interested. If he manages to find a unicorn, I will make sure that the wreath sent to his funeral is fabulous because unicorns have taste, discernment and a fucking sharp horn to express their displeasure. They are the most incredible thing to ever happen to this planet, not a publicity stunt and I look forward to the inevitable clusterfuck that your grasping little asshole of a client is going to call down on him for trying to use them like that."

"-I-" The handler sounds breathless. Brad flicks his hands dismissively.

"Bored now," he croons, finger stabbing at the button. "Buh-bye."

The call cuts off. There is a moment of appreciative silence and then Adam starts clapping, everyone else joining in and laughing as Brad preens.

"That has to be at least a 9.8," Adam compliments him. "That might actually be the bitchiest thing I've heard you say this year. That was _awesome_."

"It's easier to be a bitch when you aren't trying to censor yourself for delicate little ears," Brad deflates, looking at the small plaid cushion with only the lightest dusting of glitter, still lying in the corner where the movers must have left it. The mood changes immediately, like a cloud blocking out the sun, a chill spreading through the kitchen.

Adam wants to be able to retreat back to the haze and the hollow echo of his own thoughts bouncing around his head. He wants to not be feeling like there's a black hole in his chest, sucking away every breath he tries to take. Most of all, Adam wants Kris back; clattering joyfully across the kitchen floor after dropped fruit and learning fashionably-dubious dance moves from Tommy.

But...

But he thinks back to Canada and the chill air outside as Tommy crouched beside Kris and called him a lucky son of a bitch with a smile. He thinks of the crowds of lost, despairing people who screamed and cheered when Adam reached out to remind them that dreams really can come true. He thinks about late night walks, improbable plant growth and lazy mornings napping as the sun inched across the sky. He thinks of golden glitter and exuberant curiosity and blinks away the weight of the tears on his eyelashes.

"I'm not ready to face the media hordes," Adam warns after the silence has stretched uncomfortably long. "But I guess I'm ready to start getting ready." He pauses, tilts his head and rethinks that sentence. "If that makes sense?"

"As much sense as anything else you say," Lanie is smiling despite the crisp tone. "This means you're going to have to start switching on your phone. And screening your calls. We think someone leaked the number."

"Joy," Adam deadpans and the conversation turns slowly to other topics.

It's hard to remember the next morning why he ever wanted to be a rockstar. Adam is just playing catch-up on the last eleven days of hell and he is half-tempted to change his name and go join a hippy commune. There are five federal charges pending, according to CNN. The label, astonishingly, are backing him to the hilt and have already pledged their full support. SUN's membership has gone up by five hundred percent, they now have nearly a million members across the world which is going to mean lots of paperwork to change their status to 'international charity' and Brad is addressing Congress on the 'unicorn crisis' in DC.

Four different fundamentalist organizations are setting up petitions to have honest-to-god _treason_ added to the charges. There are already five thousand different Facebook groups and a flame war that has knocked Facebook offline twice. Adam's now the top trending artist on Twitter by a truly ridiculous percentage. One of Lanie's emails casually suggests one in three tweets is tagged for him and Adam has to go get a drink. He's used to the bizarre, the weird and outright crazy shit but there are some things that he just needs alcohol to process.

After twenty hours of staring at various websites and over-doing the liquid courage, Adam crawls into bed and prays hazily that tomorrow will be better. He dreams of normal things but there's no sense of being alone. It's more like being in the living room while somebody is puttering around the kitchen, not right there but close enough to be there if he needs them.

His phone goes off the next morning and Adam (accidentally) kicks it across the room. It's too fucking loud and Adam is trying, okay? He's trying to be good about this but 'trying' does not mean 'putting up with ungodly early phone calls'. Adam pulls his pillow over his head. He's going to have to change Lanie's ring-tone. He adores Gaga but the bass line of 'Teeth' is making his head pound like a heavy metal drum-set.

It goes off again and Adam moans, curling into the pillow and trying to kill it with his mind. He is not getting out of bed for another hour and he doesn't care! Lane calls again and again but Adam ignores every one. Then his phone starts playing 'Baby Boy' and Adam nearly breaks his leg in the mad dash across the room. Brad, unlike Lanie, does not accept being ignored.

"Adam, stop fucking around," Brad orders. "Get the fuck downstairs and answer your fucking door or I will seriously call in a hit on you."

"Answer the-?" Adam looks around and there is a faint tapping sound that might possibly be someone knocking on his door.

"No questions!" Brad barks. "Ass! Downstairs! Right _fucking_ now!"

Adam trips down the stairs, clutching the phone in one hand and his duvet in the other. He isn't really awake but he is afraid of Brad, so that counts. He doesn't see anyone through the glass panel that makes up the upper third of the door and he's looking down at his phone when there's another hesitant rat-tat-tat and he opens the door.

The boy - _man_ \- standing at the door is no-one Adam has ever seen before. Small, wearing a plaid shirt, a pair of scruffy jeans and toeing the ground with a beat-up sneaker. He has brown hair poking out from under a beanie and he's humming ' _Nothing Else Matters_ ' under his breath. Adam holds the door half open and the guy looks up.

Adam knows. Right then, right there, Adam _knows_. Even before he sees the glitter along the line of his cheekbone. He knows the second he meets those wide brown eyes. And he drops his phone on the marble, doesn't flinch when it breaks into a hundred pieces.

"Kris," he means it to be a shout but it's a whisper.

Kris is- he looks-...Adam would walk right past him if they passed on a street and it takes a second look (and a third and a fourth and a fifth) to see the glitter, subtler and the deeper, fond wisdom in his eyes.

"Adam," and that voice-that voice is familiar. Adam blinks, the smell of green grass and peach trees flashing across his mind. "Uh, I know-"

"You-you sneaky little gold _asshole_ ," Adam's voice wobbles up into a falsetto crack that would be mortifying under other circumstances.

"Surprise?" Kris' voice wavers and Adam crowds into him, flinging his arms around Kris. Kris fits against him like he was made for it. Adam's memories of the tiny baby unicorn who loves him so openly and the hazy jumbled warmth of his somebody run together, locking in place like a jigsaw and he laughs drunkenly into Kris' neck.

"Oh my fucking god, Kris," the kiss he presses to Kris' hair is reflex but the slight shiver presses Kris tantalizingly close to him. "It's-you're _here_!"

"Yeah, I'm back," Kris turns his head, lips brushing the side of Adam's neck. Adam's suddenly so glad for his loose sweatpants. "For good this time, I swear. I'm sorry but I couldn't stay-"

"Of course," Adam assures him, cuddling Kris closer and running his hands up along Kris' back. "You couldn't have, not with them there."

"Also," Kris turns his head and stretches up on tip-toe, kissing the corner of Adam's mouth lightly. "I'm sorry we came so early. I thought you'd be up."

"That's all-wait, _we_?!" Adam's head jerks up and he nearly has a heart-attack. If Kris wasn't holding him up, Adam would have gone right over backwards in a full diva swoon.

His front 'yard' (which is really more like an acre and a half) is full of unicorns. Literally. There must be ten thousand of them, standing crowded together. The dazzle from the glitter is blinding and Kris is laughing against his chest and there are helicopters swarming through the blue sky and Adam can see cameras flashing and-...and he doesn't give a fuck. There are ten thousand unicorns standing in Adam's front yard, preening and smug. Kris is tucked safely against Adam's chest with Adam's arm around him, laughing and free and still wonderfully, inexplicably here.

Adam looks out over the sea of unicorns and something else catches his eye. Unicorns come in every color imaginable but there's something about the way the colors look. Adam turns to bury his delighted laugh in Kris' hair. "You made me a rainbow of unicorns?"

"Well, the films that Tommy showed me? The people in those films had stuff," Kris is blushing, a faint pink dusting across his cheeks that Adam wants to taste. "Like flowers? But all the flowers here are skinny and taste of car engine-"

"Okay," Adam has to hide another giggle against Kris' blushing cheek as the sheer joy that fills his chest bubbles up again. "One, you know humans doesn't actually eat flowers, yes? Two, you dragged every unicorn in the US to my doorstep to make me a rainbow? You are just too sweet to be _real_!"

"Oh, no!" Kris shakes his head. "This is just the Californian blessing. They're...my family, kinda. I mean, my mom and dad are part of this and my kid brother's probably going to stay with them when they move back in. They've really liked what you've been doing, by the way? Katy - that's the belle demoiselle - she really thinks SUN get what unicorns need. She's looking forward to meeting Brad, actually. That's -um, well, that's going to be interesting but, well, yes."

"This-this is just the unicorns in California?"

"Well, yes," Kris is going properly red now. "I-I couldn't figure out what to get you so I, well, I kinda asked my mom and that meant that I had to tell her why I had my human form and why I hadn't come home and she wanted to meet you-"

"You could have gone home anytime?" Adam sputters. "What the fuck, Kris?"

"Unicorns aren't like humans, Adam," Kris tilts his head up and Adam is helpless to resist the light kiss. "I knew I was in love with you by the end of the first day. I just had to wait until I could, well," he shrugs, holding his hands out to show off his human body. "I needed time to get my human form right but I didn't want you to forget me."

"Never happen," Adam breathes against his lips, stealing another kiss because he doesn't think he'll ever get tired of kissing Kris. "Wait, are you still a _baby_ unicorn?"

"I'm twenty five!" Kris protests. "Unicorns age slower, that's all! And uh, I might be stuck as a foal when I'm a unicorn. The magic's a little tricky like that."

"How ever will I cope?" Adam sighs melodramatically then laughs and kisses him until Kris stops trying to protest. "I love you too, you know. I don't mind if you're a tiny gold hyperactive tadpole forever. Just so long as you're here."

Kris kisses him and laughs and Adam can see the media and the crowds all the way down at the bottom of his fantastic, awesomely long drive. Kris' mom is there, somewhere and Adam's going to have to meet her. Adam can see a unicorn with a demure white gold coat waiting politely behind one of the ridiculous hedge sculptures with two other golden unicorns that remind him of Kris crowded up against her flanks. He has to tell _his_ mom and his dad and introduce Kris to everyone all over again.

He can hear the house phone shrilling away like a fire alarm and he's going to have to make a statement, get in front of the camera as Adam Lambert and as President of SUN. There are still the charges and the trial and Homeland Security and his label and his next album. Adam's life is crowded with all these important things.

Adam doesn't care. He cups Kris' chin and kisses him thoroughly, drawing out the moment and mapping the way Kris gasps when Adam grazes his lip with the promise of teeth. He kisses Kris and for a minute, it's just the two of them in the world.

At last, Adam steps back and looks at Kris, dazed and beautiful Kris. He threads their fingers together, smiling so wide that he thinks he'll split his cheeks but he doesn't care about that.

"Come on, baby," he says, tugging on Kris' hand. "Come with me."

"Always," Kris promises and they're laughing as they start down the driveway, the rainbow sea of unicorns parting to let them past. The cameras flash and the fans scream and Adam smiles. He doesn't look away from Kris and Kris smiles back, open and loving and Adam's life is pretty fucking fantastic.


	2. Chapter 2

The first issue is the legal one. Homeland Security wants Adam arrested. LAPD takes one look at the rainbow blessing of unicorns and takes one smart step back. The lieutenant who is summoned by the Agent-in-charge smiles at all the cameras and says that the LAPD stands ready to perform their federally mandated duty just as soon as Mr Agent-in-charge (who has a real name but the news channels don't seem to know it) clarifies what that is.

According to Lanie, who is commentating for Adam via the wonder of speaker phone, the HUNTER act is languishing in committee. Senators and Congressmen are after all wondering why unicorns shouldn't be allowed to migrate when it's obvious that the USA isn't running out of unicorns after all.

The photographers get a few shots of Adam and Kris that first morning but frankly, even Adam in his pajama pants and faded 'SAVE THE UNICORN' t-shirt can't compete with the legions of unicorns filling his front lawn. When the photographers realize that really they should be getting some shots of Adam _too_ , it's already too late. Adam and Kris are safely inside the house. Even the most ingenious and unethical photographer isn't getting past the entirety of the Californian blessing. It's like having his very own rainbow moat. Adam gloats for exactly two hours as the unicorns block every single one of the photographers and the fans and the police who try to get in.

Then it occurs to Adam that while he's totally cool with having a paparazzi-proof unicorn moat, it also means he can't order Chinese or pizza and he hasn't eaten anything that wasn't delivered since Kris disappeared. Adam hugs Kris a little tighter as that thought crosses his mind.

"So," Adam says a little faintly as he looks out at the sea of unicorns and starts calculating the exponential tonnage of food he's going to need to feed several thousand unicorns. "I might not have planned for a plague of unicorns."

"We're not that bad," Kris laughs.

"My weekly four-figure standing order at Whole Foods begs to differ, baby," Adam says dryly.

"I have faith in you," Kris says encouragingly and drags Adam off to investigate his kitchen.

Adam winds up owing Lanie a raise because she's stocked the whole house with food; at least three months' worth of food. It's mostly organic pasta but there's pizza dough and the crispy little pepperonis that Tommy likes, the salsa dip that makes LP drool and the weird mishmash of Asian food that Monte likes to show that her forward planning was clearly meant for the band. The unicorns are all happy to eat it anyway which is awesome and means that Adam might actually have a garden left by the time they work out what the hell happens next.

Also, Kris' mom Kim - who is both a blonde motherly lady and a tall, graceful demoiselle with a violet coat with golden mane and tail - has taken over the kitchen by the time they emerge from the basement fridges. She has three pots (two of which Adam doesn't think were in his kitchen before) bubbling and is tasting one of them. Adam is grateful for her within about twenty seconds of her starting to _cook_. He also meets Kris' dad - an older man with a more subdued version of Kris' blinding grin and a lean silver unicorn - and his baby brother Daniel, who was a brassier golden yearling who hadn't learned to take a human form yet. Adam is looking forward to getting to know them better but honestly, he's having a hard time looking away from Kris.

Kris - _human_ Kris - doesn't look anything like his unicorn self (except for the eyes) and he doesn't look like Adam would have imagined Kris-as-a-human would look like. He's cute in the hot Southern boy way that pushes all Adam's buttons but he's not inhumanly handsome or perfectly proportioned. He looks like a normal...well, at least a _realistic_ kind of guy until you get close enough to see the faint golden glitter under his skin.

Adam spends the next few days just looking at Kris, watching him bounce around and explore the mansion. Kris takes a break from his need to hug Adam every other minute to push his brother into the pool what seems like every five minutes. Kris explains that it's Daniel's own fault for getting glitter on the furniture and Adam's things, which Adam privately considers to be hypocritical, and he point-blank refuses to share the three bottles of BBQ sauce he finds in the depths of the fridge but otherwise he seems happy and up-beat.

Kris actually isn't that different when he's walking (bounding) around on two feet instead of four. He sings, bubbly snatches of songs that Adam mostly recognizes and he's always smiling. Kris stays close to Adam the whole time - which isn't actually new, Adam admits - and he really, really likes hugging. Adam, for the record, completely endorses Kris' policy of keeping one arm looped around Adam's waist. Kris hugs Adam a lot but Adam's not exactly upset and makes a point of hugging him back every chance he gets.

Kris is sweet, eager and as openly and exuberantly affectionate as ever. Adam's always loved how free Kris was with affection and having a human-version of Kris who is happy to spend five minutes kissing lazily and still crawls into Adam's lap regardless of who else is in the room is completely irresistible. This leads to a few near-misses, each of which takes about five years off Adam's life, culminating in Kim walking in on them necking like teenagers in what used to be the fifth bedroom and is now Adam's second closet (leather pants to Valentino belts).

"Um, hi," Adam manages to smile weakly at Kim, arms locked around Kris to keep him from getting distracted and moving. Opinions of his fans aside, Adam isn't God and there is no way he can hide his suddenly-inappropriate erection while wearing his tatty old sweats. Kris smiles against Adam's neck and Adam clears his throat. "Not that it's not great to see you all but uh-"

"What am I doing here and when am I leaving?" Kim smiles and swats at Kris' leg when he nips Adam's earlobe experimentally. Adam can't keep his eyes from rolling back a little and Kris' satisfied 'hmm' is barely loud enough for Adam to hear it. Kim swats him again and Kris sits back a little. Kris looks at his mom with wide, innocent eyes and Adam muffles his slightly hysterical laughter against Kris' chest. "Don't do that, Kris. I know I raised you better. Adam, I wanted to ask you if-"

Adam blanks out the rest of what she says in a rush of utter mortification. He has never in his life empathized so hard with teenage straight boys; Adam's first boyfriend happened after he moved out and he's never had his parents walk in on anything racier than pixelated porn. He is aware that Kim says something else and she pats him on the shoulder as she leaves. Adam can smell the dark chocolate/sugary cookie dough as he stares up at the ceiling and wonders if you actually can die of embarassment. Kris giggles against Adam's neck, breath hot against the damp patch that was probably going to be a huge hickey.

"Your mom just walked in on us," Adam says to the ceiling. "If you think I am still in the mood after that, you are seriously mistaken."

"I don't think I am," Kris' voice is low and there's a hungry rasp to it that makes Adam shiver. Kris tugs Adam back into a deep, drawn out kiss. Kris _likes_ kissing, Adam's learning and he's a natural at it. Kris kisses open-mouthed and inviting and Adam forgets all about Kim and unicorns wandering around his house or outside his house and all the other important stuff he was meant to be worrying about. It can all wait.

Adam's just going to stay right here, kissing Kris. Kris smiles into the kiss, a pleased curl that Adam can practically taste and rocks his hips down deliberately. Adam's breath catches and Kris braces his hands across Adam's chest, accidentally brushing a nipple and okay, Kris was right. Adam is _totally_ in the mood.

(He does remember to lock the door this time.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Athenaps for the DonorsChoose Dollar Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment [on birddi's art here](http://birddi.livejournal.com/26396.html)


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